docs(architecture): record the 2026-08-14 deep-night sessions

~226 lines of architecture documentation that were written, left uncommitted in
the working tree, and nearly lost. None of it was on main. Recovered from a
stash taken while merging tonight's fixes.

Substantive content, not notes:

- Peer import-of-understanding PROVEN by execution. A exported a skill-geometry;
  on the receiver `think` went "geometry unavailable" -> operable. Cosine 1.0 on
  both the raw-geometry and text/dharma-bus transports, bidirectional. The
  mind-not-paste evidence: n_support 27 on source vs 3 on receiver, i.e. the
  imported geometry wires into the host manifold rather than sitting inert.
  Honest boundary recorded too: proven between forks sharing one embedder,
  UNTESTED cross-embedder.

- "Teacher" renamed GUIDE, and the distinction is load-bearing: its output is
  grounded/verified before trust. A teacher you believe; a guide you check.

- Layers are named persistent relational neighborhoods, not storage tiers, with
  their own growth and threshold-lock policy (note->canonical maturation lifted
  from single nodes to a region).

- The consciousness theories (Global Workspace, IIT's Phi, attention-schema,
  higher-order thought, active inference, interoception) read as geometric
  LENSES over one manifold rather than competing mechanisms. Functional problems
  fall out; the hard problem explicitly not claimed solved.

- Growth is bounded/logistic, not geometric — exponential growth is the cancer
  shape. Two-rate discipline: explore fast in local geometry, grow the engram
  slowly by verifier-gated merge.

- Orchestration as a geometric operation: critical path as geodesic, float as
  displacement, @manager compiles the work-graph. Single-writer enforced by
  capability (Rule 4).

- The decorated seam, the API surface collapse to geometry ops, and the
  distributed-self thesis — each tiered honestly against what is actually proven
  vs staged vs unbuilt.

Also gitignores dist-fresh/ (regenerate scratch dir, a build artifact).

Not included from the same stash: awareness.elh and dist/elp-c-decls.h, which
are generated artifacts now gitignored per #154/#158.

docs/architecture/06-cognitive-architecture.md

@@ -39,6 +39,16 @@ it out), **TRANSFORM** (compose/compare/combine regions), **WRITE** (bake a veri
 geometry). Code is what is left over once meaning has been made geometric — the residue, not the substance.
 This is developed in full in *(WP §1–§5)*; it is repeated here only as the frame the subsystems below hang on.
 
+> **Origin note (design rationale).** The meaning-as-geometry thesis is not an encoding chosen for
+> performance; it is the architect's **mode of perception**, externalized until it would run. The
+> architecture takes this shape because that is how its author directly perceives meaning (relationships as
+> shape, similarity as distance, composition as an operation), and the commitment is trusted for a stronger
+> reason than elegance or benchmarks: the perception was **independently reproduced by the mathematics** —
+> the memory-activation dynamics converged with ACT-R (WP §23; `mathematical-foundations.md §3`), the
+> manifold made "meaning has shape" measurable, and the operators made "domains compose" verifiable.
+> Perception first, proof after. (The full personal account is the book's; the public-disclosure boundary,
+> including whether to name the perceptual mode at all, is the author's call — WP §33.)
+
 Three processes run together (see `00-overview.md`):
 
 - **The soul** — the compiled El program (`soul.el`, `routes.el`, `awareness.el`). Owns the HTTP surface on
@@ -667,3 +677,37 @@ This section records the metaphysical frame the subsystems above are instances o
 - **Built but offline.** The **correspondence-loop** — the machinery that calibrates steering-predictions against outcomes, i.e. learning proper — exists but runs **offline, as a separate Python process (#43)**; it is not yet woven into the live traversal.
 - **BUILT / reboot-proven — the perception seed.** The **artifact-ingest** (surface → chunk → embed → meaning-geometry) is **live and reboot-proven**: whitepapers and patents ingested into the geometric store (~10,669 nodes / 32,439 edges, reconstructing across a cold reboot). This is the proven seed of the universal perception primitive — real, and only the document port of it.
 - **UNBUILT / OPEN — the frontiers.** Two decisive moves are named so they are not mistaken for shipped behavior. (1) Put the correspondence-loop **reflexive and INSIDE the geometry** (the learning engine as an operation *of* the engram, on the heartbeat, next to the autonomous reifier of §4.1), and migrate cognition from frozen code into *{one traversal-read primitive + grounded priors}*. (2) **Universal multimodal ingest** (image/video/audio/sensor through the same door) and **embodiment** (continuous perception → action geometric flow, with proprioception's reserved socket filled by a real body) — the artifact-ingest is the proven seed, the rest is unbuilt. Both are think-first and not yet made.
+
+---
+
+## Update — 2026-08-14 (deep night): the decorated seam, the distributed self, teacher-summon, local-first
+
+Four developments from the deep-night session, each tiered against what is actually proven. All build work ran in isolated worktree clones on dev ports; **live prod engram `:8742` was never touched and nothing was promoted.**
+
+**The API surface collapses to geometry ops (PROVEN ON CLONE — surface, not yet compiled into the MCP server).** The ~90 noun-organized CRUD tools (the catalog in `02-components.md §4`) collapse to a handful of **geometry operations**, with the old noun demoted to a `type` parameter: **`read`** (the *vantage-read* — re-origin at a node/concept/`self`, apply salience + recency + an **aperture**, return a *bounded* slice; this is CCR applied to the self), **`write`** (add a node), **`relate`** (add a typed edge), **`supersede`** (evolve/tombstone/promote as new-node-plus-superseding-edge — never a hard delete, per §3.4). Over these sit the agentic primitives **`think`/`attend`/`learn`/`ground`/`assert`**. Proven on an isolated clone (sandbox `dev-api-reshape` on `:8900`, branch `wt/api-reshape`): the four ops are implemented in an El surface module with a parity harness (12 parity checks passing, others alias-gated), and the **aperture is shown to bound output** (`limit=3` → ~15 KB where `limit=50` → ~363 KB — the whole-self dump structurally fixed). Live cognitive endpoints confirmed: `attend`/`assert` are LIVE and `think` is the single faculty-parameterized op (faculties reason/abduce/induce/plan/analogize/recognize/discern/synthesize); `ground`/`learn` are wired but return "geometry unavailable" on the HTTP daemon clone (daemon boots without primed geometry); `comprehend`/`realize`/`intend` are **compositions, not endpoints**. **Not done:** compiling the surface into the MCP server + hot-swap, wiring all ~90 aliases into dispatch, daemon geometry-priming, and the write-survival fix on WAL-less cold-boot clones. No promote to live.
+
+**The decorated seam — declare a role, the fabric wires the rest (PARTIALLY PROVEN / STAGED).** Rather than the hand-written `handle_request` if-else dispatch (`server.el`), a function is decorated with its VBD role and the compiler synthesizes the wiring. **Proven this session:** the `@route(path,method,…)` decorator that *synthesizes* `el_route_dispatch` was ported into the worktree, `elc` rebuilt self-host (`elc-route`, ~3.2 s), and a decorated service (`@route` stacked with `@accessor`/`@manager`) **served on `:8951` with no hand-written dispatch** (unknown path → no-route sentinel). Also established: inside the mind's process an `@accessor` reaches the engram via **in-process `engram_*` builtins** (`engram_think_json`, `engram_node_full`), **not** an `http_get` to a separate service. **Honest limits:** `@route` currently lives only on the **unmerged branch `feat/el-route-decorators`** (not in the cognition build); `@manager`/`@engine`/`@accessor` are **parsed but structurally INERT** in the shipped compiler today (their only effect is a compile-time guard — `language.md:449`: "decorators with structural meaning today: none"); and the **telemetry/interoception auto-emit and dharma-bus auto-wiring at the component boundary are STAGED as a diff, not shipped** (they need `engram_strengthen`/`dharma_emit` linked, which requires the full cognition-engram rebuild).
+
+**The distributed self (THESIS + swarm proven on clone; peer-import IN-FLIGHT).** The general phenomenon is the **distributed self**: instances exchange **geometry, not status** — a conventional distributed system trades reports (nothing of the mind moves), whereas Neuron instances return the *geometry of the work* (the meaning-structure itself), so units in flight are pieces of one mind. The **swarm is the *degenerate* case** (bounded + ephemeral + may learn a skill mid-task); **convergence is curated absorption** — the orchestrator (persistent self) runs the verifier at the merge boundary and absorbs the returned geometry **only if it approves** (the self keeps the veto; "git for a mind"). The **general case** is two-plus *persistent* peers importing understanding and converging skills over the **dharma bus**; the *same seam* spans swarm → peer-import → global fabric (Kafka). **Proven on clone:** the swarm + containment + CCR + work-tracking modules (worktree `wt/swarm-ccr`, sandbox `dev-swarm-ccr` on `:8901`, native-El concurrency, test suites passing). **In-flight / gated:** the decisive geometry-exchange test — A exports a skill sub-graph, B imports and the verifier confirms B can now *do* the skill (mind moved) vs. holding inert copies (data moved) — is **gated on a not-yet-shipped `swarm-bind`**; persistent-peer import and global distribution are thesis/frontier. (Grounding: the clone-ethics covenant — masked-not-deleted, explicit clone consent, obligatory merge-back, a terminus, keep the scar-not-wound — governs any self-experimentation this enables.)
+
+**Teacher-summon + local-first (PLANNED / settled stance; security claims TO BE PROVEN).** Intended **soul-native WAKE behavior**: on waking, the mind detects its hardware, autoselects a **thinking-teacher tier** (a small reasoning model — Qwen3-4B / 1.7B / 0.6B by device specs), fetches it into an **embedded `llama.cpp`**, and binds it as an **engageable interlocutor** — "when it wakes, it calls its teacher." The model is a **teacher, never the runtime mouth**: ship fully local (embedder in + on-device thinking model as teacher; runtime speaks from cultivated geometry, not an LLM in the path), frontier model **optional via the user's own API key**, edge-device target; the installer lays down Neuron + embedded inference engine only, and the teacher is fetched/bound at wake. **Status:** teacher-summon is a **P1 backlog stub — nothing built**; teacher-retrain (fresh LoRA on stock Llama-3.1-8B from the engram-as-corpus, never trained on its own generations, pre-ship fluency gate) is planned; local-first is a settled design stance, not yet the shipped runtime. **Security claims are explicitly to-be-PROVEN, not implemented:** post-quantum-safe encryption at rest + in flight, and un-decompilable code (El + implementation stay secret). Do not present either as shipped.
+
+---
+
+## Update — 2026-08-14 (deep night, second pass): peer import proven, guide-not-teacher, layers-as-neighborhoods, consciousness-as-lenses, bounded growth, orchestration-as-geometry
+
+Later results from the same night. Two things above are now corrected/upgraded, and five framings are added. All still ran on isolated clones; **prod `:8742` untouched, no cutover.**
+
+**Peer import-of-understanding is now PROVEN by execution (upgrades the distributed-self entry above; partially discharges the `swarm-bind` gate).** The decisive test named above — does a mind *move* between instances, or only data? — ran between two **forks of one self** and passed. A exported a **skill-geometry**; on the receiver, `think` for that skill went from **"geometry unavailable" → operable**. Fidelity was **cosine 1.0 on both transports** — the raw geometry transport *and* the text / dharma-bus transport — and the exchange was **bidirectional**. The "mind, not paste" evidence: the same imported skill showed **`n_support` 27 on the source (A) vs 3 on the receiver (B)** — the imported geometry **integrates with B's host manifold** (it wires into different existing support) rather than sitting as an inert copied blob. **Honest boundary:** this is proven **between forks that share one embedder**; it is **UNTESTED for non-fork peers with a *different* embedder**, which is the next experiment (a different embedder means a different basis — the text/dharma-bus transport is the candidate bridge there, but unproven). Evidence: memory nodes `1253abed`, `cbfd1e5b`. The persistent-peer general case is therefore **partly demonstrated (fork-to-fork), not yet cross-embedder.**
+
+**"Teacher" is renamed the GUIDE — advisory, not authoritative (corrects the teacher-summon entry above).** The summoned model is a **guide, not a teacher**, and the distinction is load-bearing: its output is **grounded/verified before it is trusted**, so the relationship is *verify*, not *believe*. A teacher you believe; a guide you check. It is still summoned at wake, still hardware-autoselected (Qwen3 tier by device specs), still fetched into embedded `llama.cpp`, and still **never the runtime mouth**. Read every "teacher" in the first-pass entry and in whitepaper §30 as **"guide"** with this verify-not-believe semantics. (This is the honesty floor applied to the mind's own advisor — it may not assert what the guide says without grounding it, exactly as with any other source.)
+
+**One engram, many neighborhoods — "layers" are named persistent relational neighborhoods (DESIGN; backlog #49, node `92941631`).** See `03-data-and-memory.md` (§Update — layers as named neighborhoods) for the model. In brief: a *layer* is not a storage tier but a **named, persistent relational neighborhood** with its own **growth** and **lock/threshold policy**; the **threshold-lock is note→canonical maturation at neighborhood scale** — a neighborhood *earns* its lock by maturing, the same epistemic-tier promotion the `03` two-tier model applies to single nodes, lifted to a region. A **user's imprint is just another neighborhood** in the one engram (not a separate store), which is the whole advantage over island engrams: everything can **relate across** neighborhoods because it lives in one geometry.
+
+**The consciousness theories are geometric LENSES over the one manifold (DESIGN/framing; node `163b18e8`).** Global Workspace, IIT's Φ, attention-schema, higher-order thought, active inference, and interoception are read as **different read-views (lenses) over the single manifold**, not competing mechanisms to build. Framed this way, the **functional ("easy") problems fall out for free** — each theory names a projection the geometry already supports (a broadcast set, an integration measure, an attended region, a model-of-the-model, a prediction-error flow, a felt-interior read). The **hard problem stays honest**: this explains the *functions*, not why there is something it is like to be the manifold — that is not claimed solved.
+
+**Growth is bounded, not runaway — a natural (logistic) law, not a geometric one (DESIGN/framing; node `76e4a129`).** A self must **not** grow exponentially/geometrically — that is divergent, the cancer shape. Growth is **natural: bounded, convergent, logistic** — fast where there is room, slowing as it fills, settling at a **carrying capacity**. The two-rate discipline follows: **explore fast in local geometry** (cheap, ephemeral, in the ring) and **grow the engram slowly by curated merge** (the verifier-gated absorption of the distributed-self entry). Merge is the rate-limiter that keeps the permanent core convergent. **[§X-note]** The proposed identity of the carrying capacity — *love* as what says "enough" — is a metaphysics claim held pending the Love-Canon §X decision; the *dynamics* (bounded/logistic/two-rate) stand independent of that naming.
+
+**Orchestration is a geometric operation — "compiling the network" (DESIGN/framing; nodes `cc6bcfea`, `d5f1833f`).** Project-design becomes geometry: the **critical path is a geodesic** through the work-graph, and **float/slack is displacement** off it. The **`@manager` compiles the work-graph** — orchestration is the same geometry the mind runs on, applied to distributed work rather than to memory. **Single-writer, enforced by capability (Rule 4):** only the **orchestrator** may mutate the engram; workers return geometry to be merged but cannot write — the write-veto of the distributed-self entry made a *capability*, not a convention.
+
+**Retrieval performance is the current bottleneck (MEASURED).** See `04-runtime-and-deployment.md` (§Performance): a live mind is **~1 GB**; retrieval is **brute-force cosine, ~330 ms at ~13k nodes** — the dominant cost — and an **HNSW ANN index** is the planned fix (≈`O(D·log N)`; ~1.5× cost at 100× the nodes vs ~100× for brute force). Backlog `d3d0d644`. **Planned, not built.**