📖About

The Initiative Author currently operates as a single thin model call with only raw intent text, causing it to reject legitimate small admin tasks and produce shallow plans that miss Carol operating constraints. Rebuild it as a Claude Code session that loads the cookbook, relevant SST registry rows, and parent initiative context (if referenced) at session start, while upgrading to a stronger reasoning model. This will enable the Author to produce higher-quality initiatives that respect constraints, distinguish legitimate small tasks from vague intents, and reduce the bounce rate on real intents.

⚖️Decisions

• Use Claude Code session architecture (modeled after Initiative Reviewer) rather than standalone API call (Ninad)
• Load cookbook, SST registry rows, and Carol policy data at session start (Ninad)
• For follow-on intents, load parent initiative title, criteria, closure note, and outstanding scope (Ninad)
• Upgrade to stronger Claude model capable of careful reasoning about plan steps, owners, criteria, and budget (Ninad)
• Retain bounce guard for vague intents, but enhance it to distinguish legitimate small admin tasks from unclear requests (Ninad)
• Follow-on initiatives must explicitly cite parent initiative and show which scope items remain open (Ninad)
• requester rewritten ninad -> orion per CAROL-INI-744: orion is the only human-CLI requester — Backfill of historical rows after INI744 added API-level refusal of requester=ninad. Orion is Ninads CLI agent; all human-originated initiatives are filed with requester=orion. (orion)
• [status-router] planned -> dispatched | event=dispatch | Backfilled into the 3-deep dispatch queue (CAROL-INI-1972); queued for operator push, not auto-executed. (spb-01)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='no-queue-row'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='no-queue-row'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='no-queue-row'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• [status-router] dispatched -> planned | event=dispatch_retract | No longer in the top-3 dispatch window (CAROL-INI-1972). (spb-01)
• [status-router] planned -> dispatched | event=dispatch | Backfilled into the 3-deep dispatch queue (CAROL-INI-1972); queued for operator push, not auto-executed. (spb-01)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='cancelled'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='cancelled'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='cancelled'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• [status-router] dispatched -> planned | event=dispatch_retract | No longer in the top-3 dispatch window (CAROL-INI-1972). (spb-01)
• [status-router] planned -> dispatched | event=dispatch | Backfilled into the 3-deep dispatch queue (CAROL-INI-1972); queued for operator push, not auto-executed. (spb-01)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='cancelled'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='cancelled'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='cancelled'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• [status-router] dispatched -> planned | event=dispatch_retract | No longer in the top-3 dispatch window (CAROL-INI-1972). (spb-01)
• [status-router] planned -> dispatched | event=dispatch | Backfilled into the 3-deep dispatch queue (CAROL-INI-1972); queued for operator push, not auto-executed. (spb-01)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='cancelled'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='cancelled'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• Gap J (CAROL-INI-771): stuck-dispatched with queue.status='cancelled'; flipped to blocked so Escalation card surfaces it. Reason: (elrond.handover_watchdog)
• [status-router] dispatched -> blocked | event=operator_block | Blocked for RSI reconfiguration (INI-2198) (or-bx-01)
• [status-router] blocked -> executing | event=operator_unblock | RSI reconfig complete (or-bx-01)
• [status-router] executing -> dispatched | event=concurrency_cap_enforcement | Exceeded max concurrent 2 — re-queued by concurrency monitor (CAROL-INI-2180) (ds-s1)
• [status-router] dispatched -> planned | event=dispatch_retract | No longer in the top-3 dispatch window (CAROL-INI-1972). (spb-01)
• [status-router] planned -> executing | event=operator_unblock | Clearing RSI reconfig blocks (or-bx-01)
• [status-router] executing -> dispatched | event=dispatch | dispatcher queued (ds-s1)
• [status-router] dispatched -> planned | event=dispatch_retract | No longer in the top-3 dispatch window (CAROL-INI-1972). (spb-01)
• [status-router] planned -> dispatched | event=dispatch | Backfilled into the 3-deep dispatch queue (CAROL-INI-1972); queued for operator push, not auto-executed. (spb-01)
• [status-router] dispatched -> blocked | event=stuck_10min_no_activity | Elrond safety net: initiative has had no activity for 10+ minutes. Blocking under the parallel safety mechanism. (el-watchdog)
• Elrond safety net blocked initiative: no activity for 10+ minutes. Parallel mechanism (twin of handshake). (el-watchdog)
• Elrond blocked initiative under the CAROL-INI-2162 dead-Albus protocol. Albus was supposed to wake for step 0 (cause=albus_no_show) but did not respond. Cause: albus_no_show. Reason: Elrond safety net: initiative stranded 10+ min. Albus wake failed or produced no useful result. (el-s1)
• RSI diagnosed: 2026-07-01 16:03:47 -> improvement #(none). ({'_raw': "ROOT CAUSE: The initiative was blocked because Albus failed to respond for step 0 (albus_no_show), triggering Elrond's safety net after 10+ minutes of inactivity, compounded by a prior concurrency cap enforcement that re-queued it outside the top-3 dispatch window.\n\nIMPROVEMENT: Impleme (el-rsi-eng-01)
• [status-router] blocked -> diagnosis | event=diagnosis_start | RSI loop: oldest blocked (since 2026-07-01 04:27:13); Albus diagnosis INI 999900500 (el-rsi-loop-01)
• Orion remediation in progress: INI-999900500 bypass opened — CAROL-INI-696: an Orion-driven bypass has been opened to remediate this parent. The canonical Orion remediated: marker will be posted on close — see cookbook 156 / 155. (shared.bypass.bypass_start)
• Albus RSI diagnosis (root cause): [procedural, confidence high] The initiative blocked due to a procedural failure: the concurrency cap enforcement at 2026-07-01 04:43:22 re-queued it outside the top-3 dispatch window, and when it re-entered dispatch, the Elrond safety net detected no activity for 10+ minutes because the intended executor (Albus) never received the dispatch signal or failed to wake, triggering a dead-Albus protocol block. This is not a genuine work failure of the initiative itself but a pipeline handshake deadlock. (albus)
• Albus RSI recommendations: - Retrigger the initiative with an explicit dispatch-to-executor handshake timeout shorter than 10 minutes and a retry mechanism for albus_no_show. - Ensure that when concurrency cap re-queues an initiative, it is re-inserted into the top-3 dispatch window to avoid being skipped by subsequent queue operations. - Add an Albus availability check before dispatching to prevent dispatching when Albus is known to be unresponsive. - Apply the RSI improvement from the prior diagnosis: implement a faster wake-failure detection and automatic retrigger within 2 minutes. || Next attempt succeeds because: The initiative content is sound; the failure was purely a handshake and queue-positioning issue. With the handshake timeout, retry logic, and priority re-insertion, the next attempt will complete the Albus wake and execute step 0 normally. (albus)
• Orion remediated: INI-999900500 bypass closed — CAROL-INI-696 close-marker: the Orion bypass INI-999900500 filed against this parent reached terminal state (closed). This row's literal prefix Orion remediated: is the canonical signal the cookbook-155 dispatcher gate looks for. (shared.bypass.bypass_end)
• Orion remediated: Albus RSI diagnosis: [procedural, confidence high] The initiative blocked due to a procedural failure: the concurrency cap enforcement at 2026-07-01 04:43:22 re-queued it outside the top-3 dispatch window, and when it re-entered dispatch, the Elrond safety net detected no activity for 10+ minutes because the intended executor (Albus) never received the dispatch signal or failed to wake, triggering a dead-Albus protocol block. This is not a genuine work failure of the initiative itself but a pipeline handshake deadlock. (orion)
• [status-router] diagnosis -> closed | event=operator_put | PUT /api/initiatives (operator)
• Closed: superseded by follow-on INI 999900504 (CAROL-INI-0315-01: Rebuild Initiative Author with contextual learning and stronger reasoning) (elrond.initiative_author)

✅Success criteria

• Authored initiatives include plan steps that respect Carol operating constraints (no-local-Carol rule, bypass scope limits, design alignment) (must_have)
• Follow-on initiatives explicitly reference parent initiative ID and describe the outstanding scope or closure note from parent (must_have)
• Bounce rate on real, properly-formed intents drops below 10% (must_have)
• Author successfully authors both small legitimate admin tasks (under 40 hours) and large complex initiatives (over 100 hours) without false negatives (must_have)
• Thin-intent bounce guard distinguishes between vague requests and legitimate requests that happen to be narrow in scope (must_have)
• Cookbook updated with new Initiative Author workflow and context-loading behavior (nice_to_have)
• Sample initiatives authored by new Author meet the quality bar across plan steps, owner assignments, and budget estimates (nice_to_have)