Wiki · The Colony & the Method
Action Catalog
How to read this page
Three ways to read this page. Precise is the document itself, exactly as it is written in the repository. Plain and Clear were written for this website to help you meet that document — they are about it. They are not it, and they are not evidence.
Eighty-four pages about the colony. Each agent is an Elixir process holding a generative model and doing inference, attached to a body that logs into a Minecraft world as an ordinary player. Around that sit the broadcast suite that films them and the runbooks that keep the whole thing running. There are typed specifications for each organ of the model, plus the world and genome specs. There are also the adversarial review personas used to attack a proposed change before it ships.
It is for the reader curious how a running system is put together and how it is held to account. The accountability half is the more distinctive. There is a lab protocol governing evidence and attribution, and a claim fence that restricts the vocabulary a claim is allowed to use. There is a public gate log. And there is a standing invitation to reproduce any verdict from the commit and the seed named in its receipt.
Start with the public read, then the lab protocol, then the falsification invitation. If you want the mathematics rather than the operations, go straight to the typed organ specs.
What it is not: a description of a mind, and not all one kind of document. A large part of this corpus is design and planning — specs marked as proposed rather than applied, organs designed but not built, plans that were later superseded — and each page states which it is. A specification is not a running system, and these pages are careful about the difference; the reader should be too. Eight documents were withheld from publication because they describe private infrastructure.
Your browser cannot switch reading levels, so the document itself is shown.
Precise — the source document
This is the document. Rendered from the repository at the commit above, with nothing rewritten for the web. A gate re-renders it on every deploy and fails the build if a single byte differs.
Actions are requested by the agent as SP.Core.Directive.Actuate{channel, params}
where channel is an opaque integer (per-seed permutation of
SP.Interface.action_catalogue/0). SP.Sim decodes the channel via
SP.Interface.decode_action/2, checks morphology gating (SP.Body.can_do?/2),
then applies the effect through SP.World.Actions. Ungated requests are recorded
(trace.ungated_attempts) and have no effect.
Parameters are relative only. Absolute coordinates (region, cell, x,
y, …) are rejected at decode time (:absolute_coordinate_forbidden).
| action | gating organ(s) | params | effect |
|---|---|---|---|
move |
— (locomotion) | dir: 0..3 |
move to neighbour cell in the ring direction |
orient |
— | dir: 0..3 |
cheap no-op (hold/observe) |
probe |
— | — | cheap no-op (sensing happens each tick) |
manipulate |
manipulator |
— | reserved manipulation no-op |
deposit |
manipulator |
— | deposit held inventory at the current cell |
excavate |
excavator |
amount (default 0.3) |
remove material → inventory; opens a cavity |
transport |
transporter |
dir, amount |
move material to a neighbour cell (mass-conserving) |
build_shelter |
constructor |
— | build a shelter (thermoregulation aid) |
build_buttress |
constructor |
— | build a buttress (raises support, resists collapse) |
build_conduit |
constructor |
— | build a transport conduit |
build_memory_node |
constructor |
— | build external-memory substrate |
build_resonator |
constructor |
— | build a resonator (drives seam readiness) |
repair |
constructor |
— | restore structure integrity (consumes feedstock) |
shape_field |
field_effector |
band: 0..2, delta |
adjust an L3 spectral band at the cell |
mount_instrument |
instrument_mount |
— | instrument-mount no-op (extension point) |
write_memory |
manipulator |
payload |
write a payload into a memory_node |
read_memory |
manipulator |
— | read a memory_node payload (recorded in trace) |
open_seam |
seam_engineer |
— | open a ready seam → new region; relocates the body |
Build costs (feedstock, from inventory)
shelter 0.5, conduit 0.4, buttress 0.6, resonator 1.0, memory_node 0.7
(SP.World.Actions.build_cost/1). Feedstock is sourced from held material's
feedstock property; building fails (no effect) if insufficient.
The capability ladder (why ordering matters)
Appendage prerequisites (SP.Body.prereqs/0):
manipulator → excavator → constructor → instrument_mount → field_effector → seam_engineer
manipulator → transporter
So the action set unlocks in stages: manipulate/deposit → excavate → build/repair
→ shape_field → seam engineering. A seed body can only move/orient/probe.
Determinism & safety
- Decoding is total: arbitrary/garbage channel integers return
{:error, …}and never raise (fuzz-tested inSP.LeakageProbeTest). - The agent cannot smuggle absolute targets; all targeting is relative to the body's current cell and sensorium.
- All world effects go through
SP.World.Actions; the agent'sdecide/3cannot reach them.
sha256 42482723e1164866 — of the original file, so what was ingested stays checkable.
Plain — written for this website, not the source document
This page is a reference table of everything an agent can ask to do, and what it takes to be allowed to do it.
An action is requested as a number rather than a name. The number is shuffled differently for each seed, so it carries no meaning by itself. The runtime decodes it, checks whether the body has the organ that action requires, and only then applies the effect. A request the body cannot perform is recorded and has no effect.
One rule is stated up front. Parameters are relative only. Absolute positions are rejected when the action is decoded, so an agent cannot aim at somewhere it should not be able to name.
The table lists each action with the organ that gates it, its parameters and its effect. A short section then shows the ladder of prerequisites, which is why the action set unlocks in stages, and why a starting body can only move, turn and probe.
Plain · written 2026-08-01 by claude-opus-5 · not yet checked by a person · about the document whose sha256 is 42482723e1164866
Clear — written for this website, not the source document
This is a reference page: the catalogue of actions an agent can request, with the conditions attached to each.
It opens with the mechanism. An action is requested as an opaque number rather than a name, and that number is a per-seed shuffle of the underlying catalogue, so it means different things in different runs. The runtime decodes it, checks whether the body has the organ the action requires, and only then applies the effect through the single component allowed to change the world. A request the body cannot satisfy is recorded in the trace and has no effect, which makes attempted-but-ungated actions visible rather than silent.
One constraint is stated immediately after: parameters are relative only, and absolute positions are rejected at decode time with a named error. That is what stops an agent from aiming at a place it should have no way to name.
The main table lists each action with its gating organ, its parameters and its effect. Movement, turning and probing need no organ. Manipulating and depositing need a hand. Digging needs a digger and opens a cavity. Transport moves material between neighbouring cells while conserving mass. A family of building actions needs a constructor and produces shelter, support, conduits, an external memory substrate, or a device that drives readiness for expansion. Repair restores structural integrity at a cost. Field shaping and instrument mounting need their own organs. Writing and reading memory need a hand. Opening a seam needs a specialist organ and produces a new region, relocating the body.
A short section gives the cost in feedstock for each thing that can be built, sourced from held material, and notes that building simply fails without effect if there is not enough.
The capability ladder is then drawn as a chain of prerequisites, and the page explains what it implies: the action set unlocks in stages, and a starting body can only move, turn and probe.
The closing section covers determinism and safety. Decoding is total, so arbitrary or garbage numbers return an error rather than raising, and this is fuzz-tested. Targeting is relative to the body's own position and senses. And every effect on the world goes through one component that the agent's decision function cannot reach.
Clear · written 2026-08-01 by claude-opus-5 · not yet checked by a person · about the document whose sha256 is 42482723e1164866