# Plasticity — operating guide

> For invited founders whose JackIQ Brain has Plasticity entitled, and for the
> agents that operate it. Public self-serve access is not open.
>
> Raw Markdown: [/docs/plasticity.md](/docs/plasticity.md) · rendered:
> [/docs/plasticity](/docs/plasticity)

**In founder terms:** when every AI forgets your company each session, the
missing piece is not more chat history — it is *context that compounds*.
Plasticity is the layer that lets a Company Brain **move its own structure**.
Dreaming consolidates within the structure you already have. Plasticity asks
whether two settled things should ever have been connected — and proposes the
edges your brain has never made.

The load-bearing formalism is **minimum description length (MDL)**. The
free-energy principle is a contested framing we use carefully in docs; do not
claim that any brain literally computes variational free energy.

## What the layer is

A company brain accumulates facts, decisions, glossary, and doctrine far faster
than it associates them. Structural holes form: high-mass concepts that never
co-occur. Plasticity measures that gap on the founder's own connectome, then
runs operators that sample holes under controlled precision relaxation.

Two surfaces consume this guide:

- **Lens Console** at [app.jackiq.com/plasticity](https://app.jackiq.com/plasticity)
- **MCP tools** (entitlement-gated): `list_operators`, `plan_run`, `start_run`,
  `get_run`, `submit_verdicts`

If Plasticity is not entitled, those tools are absent from `tools/list` and the
console shows vitals plus an upsell — never a 404.

## The two operators

| Operator | Cadence | Risk class | What it does |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| **Mycelium** | Nightly / continuous | `safe` | Connective growth. Resolves orphans, strengthens edges, prepares the candidate pool. Provably cannot raise residual — therefore autonomous and bundled. |
| **Bloom** | Acute, founder-initiated | `sandboxed` | Precision relaxation under containment. Samples structural holes at a chosen dose, forces pairs, and returns proposals. Metered. |

Mycelium earns the next Bloom. Bloom without Mycelium is a brain that reorganizes
with nothing new to reorganize. Bloom without dreaming is a brain that
reorganizes constantly and remembers nothing. They are complementary.

Future operators (latent cause, multiverse, negative latency) register the same
way. Do not invent operator names; call `list_operators()`.

## The six phases (Bloom)

Every Bloom run walks the same ladder. Phase ids match the server
(`intention` → `come_up` → `peak` → `return` → `integration` → `afterglow`).

1. **Intention** — Record an open question *before* the store snapshot. Motivated
   framing ("prove usage-based pricing is right") is rejected as set
   contamination. Good: "What is my pricing missing?"
2. **Come-up** — Precision attenuates; load order shifts. The relaxed bundle is
   a serialization of the store for this run only — the store itself is
   untouched.
3. **Peak** — Forced pairs under high entropy. Pair count and temperature scale
   with dose. Most claims born here will die at Return.
4. **Return** — Identity restored. **This is the founder checkpoint.** Most peak
   work dies here. A run stuck at Return is a stalled loop — surface it the same
   way you surface a pending dream packet. Submit verdicts via the console or
   `submit_verdicts`.
5. **Integration** — Survivors become proposals. Nothing leaves the sandbox
   otherwise. Abort keeps the sandbox branch for audit and integrates nothing.
6. **Afterglow** — Structural proposals enter an expedited review window.
   Dreaming's structural question may *propose* rather than only flag during
   the window. Relaxation is on routing, never on approval.

## Containment

Ego dissolution is safe when the ego is in git. Bloom is sandboxed on purpose:

1. **Intention before snapshot** — you cannot retro-fit a question to an answer
   you liked.
2. **Sandbox branch** — proposals never write the live store directly.
3. **Sober sitter** — deep/heroic runs get review; sitter can allow, advise, or
   abort.
4. **Declared dose** — what is relaxed is named up front; `plan_run` shows it
   before spend.
5. **Eligibility / tolerance** — the product refuses a run that will not work
   (see [Dose](/docs/dose.md#tolerance-and-eligibility)).
6. **Eval gate** — proposals that fail the evidence bar do not advance.
7. **Human gate** — methodology and charter changes require founder approval.
   Heroic may *question* the charter; only a human may *accept*. Output is never
   auto-committed under any circumstance.

**Hard invariant:** `get_context` always serves identity precision. A relaxed
bundle requires an active `operator_run` in `running` state. Clients cannot set
a precision profile — that would be privilege escalation over the whole
governance model.

## How an agent operates a Bloom

1. Call `get_context`. Act on `nudges.plasticity` when present (eligibility, last
   run, pending Return, unreviewed proposals, afterglow status).
2. Call `list_operators` to see what this tenant can run and at which tiers.
3. Draft an open intention with the founder. Reject motivated intentions.
4. Call `plan_run(operator, tier|dose, intention, lens_overrides?)` — free, no
   model call. Read: what would be relaxed, sampled pairs, cost estimate,
   eligibility verdict, lenses excluded by tier.
5. If eligible and the founder confirms, `start_run(plan_id)`.
6. Poll `get_run(run_id)`. At Return, help the founder submit verdicts. Do not
   treat peak output as settled.
7. During afterglow, treat survivors as proposals tagged `hypothesis`. Route
   through the gate; never write doctrine or charter silently.
8. End the ordinary session with `append_episodic` as usual.

Relaxed context is a **run, not a licence**. If you are reading a relaxed
bundle, your output is a proposal.

## Related guides

- [Lenses](/docs/lenses.md) — five categories, enforced-output form, system
  library, how tuning affects a run
- [Dose](/docs/dose.md) — Trace → Heroic ladder, tolerance, eligibility, when
  to use which
- [Agent setup](/docs/agent-setup.md) — MCP connection and the six-tool contract
- [Resource index](/llms.txt)

## Derivation (optional)

These pages are the operating guide. The derivation lives in the Company Brain
methodology and governance ADRs:

- **Formal spine** — MDL objective `L(B,E) = L(S) + L(θ|S) + L(E|S,θ)`, dose as
  annealing temperature, operators as the extension point. Search the brain for
  `plasticity formal spine` or `plasticity-build-spec`.
- **ADR 0017** — plasticity layer and operator registry (complementary to the
  dreaming-loop ADR, not an amendment of it).
- **ADR 0018** — precision relaxation safety architecture (identity invariant,
  anti-wireheading on the charter, containment table).

If those documents are not in the served context, ask the founder — do not
invent the math or overstate the science.