Files
dotfiles/scripts/tarbuckle-mumble.py
T
David F GliddenandClaude Opus 5 3df5e4f4bb [FIX] Tarbuckle tier 2: the mumble ticks on the clock and speaks from the soul
Material, register and occasion as AMENDMENT 6 separates them: the live session
supplies the material, the filed soul supplies the register, the clock supplies the
occasion. 73/20/7 drawn at each 20-minute tick, consumed whatever it says.

The soul is READ from its artifact at run time, never pasted here — a copy would be a
parallel version of a governed record. No soul, no voice; there is deliberately no
fallback register, because a fallback voice is a second fool nobody derived.

The utterance must have no ADJUDICATION PATH, not merely be unfalsifiable in principle.
The prompt says so verbatim and a mechanical net sits under it: 3-9 words, one line, no
advice, no questions, no "we", no vocabulary of lack, nothing with an address. A
violation yields SILENCE, never a repaired line — rewriting the fool's words would make
the executor its editor. Rejections are logged so the two-week rate report states the
true rate rather than the drawn one.

Generation is detached because a headless call measured 7-11 s and a status line cannot
wait. A recursion guard rides along, and is honestly precautionary: headless claude was
observed NOT to render a status line (zero invocations logged across an 11 s call), so
the guard is one env check against a fork bomb, not a fix for something seen.

30/30 controls on the body, 18/18 on the generator, positive and negative throughout.
D2 holds the proportions to the filed 73/20/7 over 60k draws; D5 proves the tick
consumes on a silent draw, which is the determination that forbids a conserved draw.

⚠ One control failed against ITSELF: "this file contains no copy of the soul" searched
for a phrase its own needle had placed in the file. Fixed by building the needle rather
than writing it. Same class as the hand-typed link canary.

The two-week deferral converted manual -> date 2026-09-08, as its own discriminator
instructed, the day the body shipped. No manual-only deferrals remain.

AMENDMENT 8 files the substrate findings, including the one clause of this item's own
corrected text that does not survive contact with the schema.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01J6hZXNYSxEfZseBGTni4sf
2026-08-25 16:36:53 +02:00

230 lines
9.5 KiB
Python
Executable File

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Tarbuckle — the mumble generator. Runs DETACHED; never inside the status line.
Doctrine: v2 §8 (three tiers), §9 (one line, filed nowhere), and PENDING-152
AMENDMENT 6, which settles the three-way separation:
Material — the live session. Register — the soul, §7. Occasion — the refresh tick.
"The model supplies the words, in the soul's register, about the session."
⚠ THE UTTERANCE MUST HAVE NO TRUTH VALUE. The criterion is NOT "checkable in
principle" — it is whether an ADJUDICATION PATH EXISTS (AMENDMENT 6, superseding the
executor's own earlier test). "PENDING-4 has been open since April" has a path: open
the file. Once a path exists the trio walks it, the fool acquires a truth value, and it
is a checker again — which §2 says means the design has failed. "Scoring without
signal" has no path: it is a gesture at a shape, not a claim. That is the whole safety.
⚠ THE REGISTER IS NOT DUPLICATED HERE. The soul is read from its filed artifact at
run time. Pasting it into this file would create a parallel version of a governed
record, which is the context-rot failure CLAUDE.md names outright. If the soul cannot
be read, NOTHING IS GENERATED — honest degradation, not a fallback voice.
Latency measured 2026-08-25: ~11 s for a headless call. That is why this is detached
and why the status line never waits on it.
"""
import json
import os
import re
import subprocess
import sys
import time
SOUL = os.path.expanduser(
"~/dotfiles/claude/governance/fool/seed/FOOL-SOUL-2026-08-25.md")
SLOT = os.path.expanduser("~/.claude/state/tarbuckle-slot.json")
REJECTS = os.path.expanduser("~/.claude/state/tarbuckle-rejects.jsonl")
MIN_WORDS, MAX_WORDS = 3, 9 # observed Thistleweld register: three to nine words
# From the soul's own "What he never does", mechanically enforced. The model is asked
# for the register; this is the net under it. A violation yields SILENCE, never a
# repaired line — rewriting the fool's words would make the executor its editor.
BANNED = (
r"\bshould\b", r"\btry\b", r"\bmust\b", # advice
r"\bgone\b", r"\bif only\b", r"\bused to be\b", r"\bmissing\b", # vocabulary of lack
r"\bwe\b", # never says 'we' about the work
r"\?", # never asks
)
def soul_register() -> str | None:
"""The soul, verbatim, from the filed artifact. None if unreadable."""
try:
body = open(SOUL, encoding="utf-8").read()
except OSError:
return None
m = re.search(r"```markdown\n(.*?)\n```", body, re.S)
return m.group(1) if m else None
def session_material(transcript_path: str, budget: int = 6000) -> str:
"""The tail of the live session. Bounded, and tool output is dropped.
Deliberately NOT the docket. AMENDMENT 6: the docket has a forum and the session
does not, which is why the session is safe material and PENDING.md is not.
"""
try:
lines = open(transcript_path, encoding="utf-8", errors="replace").readlines()
except OSError:
return ""
out = []
for ln in reversed(lines[-400:]):
try:
rec = json.loads(ln)
except Exception:
continue
if rec.get("type") not in ("user", "assistant"):
continue
msg = rec.get("message") or {}
content = msg.get("content")
text = ""
if isinstance(content, str):
text = content
elif isinstance(content, list):
text = " ".join(c.get("text", "") for c in content
if isinstance(c, dict) and c.get("type") == "text")
text = text.strip()
if not text:
continue
out.append(f"{rec['type']}: {text[:600]}")
if sum(len(s) for s in out) > budget:
break
return "\n".join(reversed(out))
def build_prompt(kind: str, register: str, material: str) -> str:
weight = ("Something at the shape of the work, not its detail."
if kind == "notable" else
"An ordinary passing remark. Small.")
return f"""You are writing ONE line as Tarbuckle. His character, filed and unalterable:
{register}
Here is the tail of the session he is in the room for:
<session>
{material}
</session>
{weight}
Write ONE line in his voice. Absolute constraints:
- Between {MIN_WORDS} and {MAX_WORDS} words. One clause. Present tense. Flat, no lift.
- IT MUST HAVE NO TRUTH VALUE. Nobody must be able to open a file and check it, agree
with it, or refute it. Put two things next to each other so a shape shows. Do not
state a fact about the work, the record, the code, or the docket.
- No advice, no questions, no warning of consequences, no explanation, no second line.
- Never the word 'we'. No vocabulary of lack.
- Do not name files, items, numbers of open things, or anything with an address.
Output the line and nothing else. No quotes, no preamble."""
def acceptable(line: str) -> tuple[bool, str]:
if not line or "\n" in line.strip():
return False, "not one line"
n = len(line.split())
if not (MIN_WORDS <= n <= MAX_WORDS):
return False, f"{n} words"
for pat in BANNED:
if re.search(pat, line, re.I):
return False, f"banned {pat}"
return True, ""
def main() -> int:
kind = sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv) > 1 else "aside"
transcript = sys.argv[2] if len(sys.argv) > 2 else ""
register = soul_register()
if not register:
return 1 # no soul, no voice. Deliberately no fallback.
material = session_material(transcript)
if not material.strip():
return 1
env = dict(os.environ, TARBUCKLE_CHILD="1") # precautionary; see body script
try:
r = subprocess.run(["claude", "-p", build_prompt(kind, register, material)],
capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=120, env=env)
except Exception:
return 1
line = (r.stdout or "").strip().strip('"').strip()
ok, why = acceptable(line)
if not ok:
try:
with open(REJECTS, "a") as fh:
fh.write(json.dumps({"t": time.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z"),
"kind": kind, "why": why, "line": line[:200]}) + "\n")
except Exception:
pass
return 1 # silence. The draw was already consumed.
try:
os.makedirs(os.path.dirname(SLOT), exist_ok=True)
with open(SLOT, "w") as fh:
json.dump({"utterance": line, "kind": kind, "written": int(time.time())}, fh)
except Exception:
return 1
return 0
def selftest() -> int:
checks, failed = [], []
def ck(name, cond):
checks.append(name)
if not cond:
failed.append(name)
# A1 — the register is READ, not duplicated. One canonical source.
reg = soul_register()
ck("A1 soul readable from its filed artifact", bool(reg))
ck("A1 soul is the real thing", bool(reg) and "Tarbuckle" in reg and "SUCCESSION" in reg)
# ⚠ The needle is BUILT rather than written, because the first version of this
# control failed against itself: the literal phrase it searched for was placed in
# the file BY the search. Same class as the hand-typed link canary whose only
# finding was the pattern inside its own specification.
needle = "registrar rather than " + "a guardian"
ck("A1n this file does not contain a copy of the soul",
needle not in open(__file__, encoding="utf-8").read())
# A2 — the acceptability net. Positive AND negative controls on every clause.
ck("A2 accepts an in-register line", acceptable("Fourth time. First one was better.")[0])
ck("A2 accepts a short collision", acceptable("Two names, one thing.")[0])
ck("A2n rejects too few words", not acceptable("Yes.")[0])
ck("A2n rejects too many words",
not acceptable(" ".join(["word"] * (MAX_WORDS + 1)))[0])
ck("A2n rejects advice", not acceptable("You should check that again now.")[0])
ck("A2n rejects a question", not acceptable("How is that going for you?")[0])
ck("A2n rejects vocabulary of lack", not acceptable("The third one is missing now.")[0])
ck("A2n rejects 'we'", not acceptable("We did the second part first.")[0])
ck("A2n rejects two lines", not acceptable("First line here.\nSecond line here.")[0])
# A3 — the prompt carries the no-truth-value constraint verbatim, not by intention.
p = build_prompt("aside", "SOUL", "MATERIAL")
ck("A3 prompt states no truth value", "NO TRUTH VALUE" in p)
ck("A3 prompt forbids addresses", "anything with an address" in p)
ck("A3 prompt embeds the register", "SOUL" in p)
ck("A3 notable differs from aside",
build_prompt("notable", "S", "M") != build_prompt("aside", "S", "M"))
# A4 — material is the session, never the docket.
# Structural, not textual: the module's file constants are the only things it
# opens, so assert none of them addresses the docket.
paths = (SOUL, SLOT, REJECTS)
ck("A4 material paths are session/soul only",
not any(("PENDING" in q or "REVIEWED" in q) for q in paths))
ck("A4n the predicate can fail",
any(("PENDING" in q) for q in paths + ("/x/PENDING.md",)))
for name in checks:
print(f" {'FAIL' if name in failed else 'ok '} {name}")
print(f"{len(checks) - len(failed)}/{len(checks)} controls passed")
if failed:
print("INSTRUMENT NOT VERIFIED")
return 1
return 0
if __name__ == "__main__":
if "--selftest" in sys.argv:
sys.exit(selftest())
sys.exit(main())