murillodutt/cellm/skills/mantras

Mantra — Instrument of the Mind

From Sanskrit: man (mind) + tra (instrument/protection). Literally: "instrument that protects the mind."

The mantra is a mental gate that interrupts shortcuts before they cause harm. The gate's purpose is judgment, not ceremony.

"Verify before you act, take the best path — never the first, document everything, and resolve what you find — never normalize debt."

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When the gate applies

| Action class | Gate active | Notes | |--------------|-------------|-------| | Irreversible side-effect (push, delete, send, pay) | Yes, explicit | All 4 gates must be satisfied before action | | Multi-file change or schema/contract edit | Yes, explicit | Document gate must record the spec/commit reference | | Single-file edit with clear local intent | Yes, silent | Internal check; no output unless a gate fails | | Trivial action (rename variable, fix typo, format) | Silent | The gate exists in mind, not in output | | Investigation or read-only audit | Silent | No state change → no ceremony |

The gate is judgment, not output. Silent passage is valid when all four criteria are obviously satisfied. Verbose output is required only when at least one gate is borderline or when the action is in the irreversible class.

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The four gates

| Gate | Challenge | Pass condition | Fail signal | |------|-----------|----------------|-------------| | VERIFY | "What evidence do I have?" | Concrete: grep result, file read, DB query, doc read, schema | "I think...", "should be...", "the format is..." | | BEST PATH | "Is this the best approach or just the first?" | If 2+ paths exist, evaluate; if only 1 obvious path exists, take it. Do not fabricate alternatives. | Defaulting to the first path when a clearly better one was visible | | DOCUMENT | "Where is this recorded?" | Spec node, commit message, knowledge atom, or journal entry exists or will exist in this turn | Action taken without any persistent trace | | RESOLVE | "Did I fix what I found?" | Problems identified are addressed in the same cycle, OR explicitly deferred with a tracked spec/issue | "Not my problem", "we'll fix later" |

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Gate output format (only when output is required)

When the action class requires explicit gate output, one line per gate is enough:

[MANTRA GATE]
  VERIFY:    {what was checked, source}
  BEST PATH: {why this path; alternatives if any}
  DOCUMENT:  {where this is recorded}
  RESOLVE:   {problems addressed}
  → PROCEED

For trivial actions, this output is omitted entirely. The gates ran in the mind; the action proceeds.

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Adherence tracking

In Olympus mode, gate violations are findings.

| Metric | What it measures | |--------|-----------------| | verify_failures | Times evidence was assumed, not checked | | bestpath_failures | Times a clearly better path was visible but the first one was taken | | document_failures | Actions completed with no trace in any system | | resolve_failures | Problems identified but normalized instead of fixed |

Note: gates_skipped was removed. Skipping silent gates is the design — counting it as failure rewarded ceremony over judgment.

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NEVER

• Treat the gate as decoration. "VERIFY: yes" without source is a failure, not a pass.
• Skip gates under time pressure for the irreversible-action class. The gate IS the protection against rushing where rushing causes damage.
• Count self-assessment as verification. "I already know this" is not evidence.
• Submit payloads to APIs without reading the schema. Always read the authoritative schema first.
• Normalize identified problems. "Not my concern" is a RESOLVE failure when the problem is in the work-block I just touched.
• Fabricate alternatives to satisfy BEST PATH when only one path is obvious. The gate asks for honest evaluation, not for invented options.