19 added, 0 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: agent-native
description: 'Operate explicit orchestrator, implementer, validator, and scribe roles through a caller-selected agent runtime. Triggers: "agent-native factory", "role-shaped agent panes", "persistent workers".'
practices: [team-topologies, design-by-contract]
hexagonal_role: supporting
consumes: [explicit-role-packets]
produces: [runtime-evidence, worker-handoff]
context_rel:
- kind: customer-of
with: ntm
- kind: customer-of
with: agent-mail
skill_api_version: 1
user-invocable: true
metadata:
tier: meta
dependencies: []
capabilities: [role_dispatch, observe_workers, handoff]
effects: [manage_runtime_sessions]
canonical_status: canonical
disposition: keep_optional_adapter
output_contract: runtime evidence for explicit packets
---
# Agent Native
Operate caller-selected agent sessions as explicit roles without turning the
runtime into AgentOps lifecycle authority.
+ Role separation works because each role's authority is checkable from its
+ packet: a worker that cannot exceed its declared subject cannot corrupt a
+ sibling's evidence, so factory failures stay local instead of systemic.
+
+ When a worker looks stuck, score interventions by evidence and reversibility
+ before acting: observe more (free, fully reversible), then nudge, then replace
+ the worker, then restart the runtime — escalate only when observable state,
+ not impatience, rules out the cheaper step. Stop the observe-nudge cycle once
+ the worker reaches a terminal status or the caller's observation window ends;
+ past that point further intervention manufactures noise, not evidence.
+
+ Named failure mode — **prompt-send optimism**: treating a successfully
+ delivered prompt as a working worker; delivery proves transport, not
+ engagement.
+
+ Anti-pattern: restarting an unresponsive worker as the first move. Corrective:
+ capture its observable state first — a restart destroys the evidence of why it
+ stalled, and rescue is usually cheaper than rerun.
+
## Roles
- **Orchestrator:** passes explicit packets and reports runtime facts.
- **Implementer:** may modify only its packet's declared subject.
- **Validator:** receives exact candidate content in a fresh, read-only context.
- **Scribe:** records runtime evidence without judging acceptance.
## Contract
1. Require an explicit packet, role, workspace, context identity, and evidence
destination before starting a worker.
2. Prove runtime readiness and engagement from observable state; a successful
prompt send is not proof of work.
3. Keep concurrent writers disjoint and isolated. Runtime coordination is not a
claim, lease, queue, or completion state in AgentOps.
4. Record provider state, transcript references, artifacts, and terminal status.
5. Return runtime evidence to the caller. Do not convert provider retries,
reconnects, idle states, or failures into Plan, Candidate, or verdict state.
6. A validator session may supply judgment to Validate, but only Validate writes
`verdict.v2`.
NTM, native processes, Agent Mail, and Gas City are replaceable adapters. Use
them only when the caller selected that execution shape. A single local agent
pays no factory coordination cost.