Kernel

This is tier 1 of the three-tier scaffold. Everything here is designed to port to any project, any tool, any year. Fork this directory (eventually: fork the standalone agentic-kernel repo) and install into a new workspace.

Contents

Path	Stratum	Purpose
PHILOSOPHY.md	1	Invariants of structured cognitive work. Claims about the world.
principles/	1	Ten referenced principle pages expanding on PHILOSOPHY.md
patterns/	2	Named patterns — SEACOW lens, meta-agent pattern, hook pattern, Johnny Decimal
templates/	3	Parametric templates — AGENTS.md.tmpl, skeleton directory, skill/agent templates
scripts/	4	Deterministic scripts — install.sh, hooks, sync-content
skills/	2	Meta-skills for agentic work — patterns for designing skills, agents, delegation, testing, Obsidian formats
agents/	2	Meta-agents — scaffolder, skill-writer, agent-writer, workflow-improver, etc. (agentic branch only)
commands/	3	Slash commands — /task-plan, /improve, /validate, /test, etc.
tutorials/	2	Generic learning path — first workflow, passive expertise, active executors
ARCHITECTURE.md	1	Composability patterns and tool comparison

The Minimum Viable Kernel

Per the Ultraplan research, the truly portable scaffold reduces to seven artifacts:

1. PHILOSOPHY.md — invariants
2. templates/AGENTS.md.tmpl + templates/skeleton/ — parametric
3. scripts/hooks/{check-complete,read-plan,check-knowledge}.sh — three generalized hooks
4. templates/skill.md.tmpl + templates/agent.md.tmpl — frontmatter schema
5. agents/seacow-scaffolder.md — executable interview
6. One example vault (lives at 03-work/ in this repo as a case study)
7. scripts/install.sh — stratum-3 instantiation

Everything else is either downstream or nice-to-have. See PHILOSOPHY.md for the rationale.

Stratum map

The kernel holds strata 1–4 per the five-strata framework:

• Stratum 1 (philosophy, always true): PHILOSOPHY.md, principles/, ARCHITECTURE.md
• Stratum 2 (pattern, same shape): patterns/, skills/, agents/, tutorials/
• Stratum 3 (parametric): templates/
• Stratum 4 (deterministic): scripts/

Stratum 5 (instance content) lives outside the kernel entirely, in 03-work/ of this specific repo and in any fork’s equivalent location.

Using the kernel in a new project

Eventually (after the kernel is extracted to its own repo):

# Option 1: Submodule
git submodule add https://github.com/cybersader/agentic-kernel .kernel

# Option 2: Copy
git clone https://github.com/cybersader/agentic-kernel
cd your-project && ../agentic-kernel/scripts/install.sh

# Option 3: Remote install script
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cybersader/agentic-kernel/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Each installs the skeleton, copies hooks + templates, offers to run seacow-scaffolder for an interactive setup.

See also

• PHILOSOPHY.md — the invariants this kernel expresses
• ../02-stack/ — opinionated toolkit on top of the kernel
• ../03-work/ — the example instance (this user’s personal workflow)
• ../00-meta/ — kernel-development tooling (not part of the kernel itself)