Cortex

A multi-agent orchestration system that takes content and results in, and responds by curating a totally agent-controlled memory: the brain. Built local-first by a single operator; part of Project Ava.

Honest status (2026-06-06): this repo was cheatSheets (a personal learning system) through v7.8.1. An 18-month audit found elaborate architecture with no closed loops, and the project was re-founded as Cortex with the learning system demoted to one consumer surface. The full ontology, status-tagged so aspiration cannot masquerade as fact, lives in SPEC.md. The SPEC itself is an unvalidated hypothesis until Loop 1 closes (PLAN.md).

What this is

flowchart TB
    S["SURFACES: agent-first UI, learning companion, tutor (PLANNED/STALLED)"]
    O["ORCHESTRATION: Claude brain + local-model workers + OpenClaw host (PARTIAL)"]
    M["MEMORY: corpus mirror + SQLite/FTS5 + vectors + continuity + consolidation (RUNS/STALLED)"]
    I["INGESTION: crawl -> triage -> curate -> polish -> embed (RUNS, in sibling hub)"]
    I --> M
    M <--> O
    O --> S
    S -->|results, usage, feedback| I

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• Ingestion RUNS: a 6-stage human-gated pipeline (12 sources, ~680K chunks, hybrid vector+BM25+symbol retrieval) currently lives in the sibling Ava hub; porting it here is Loop 1 work
• Memory RUNS substrate / STALLED curation: markdown corpus mirror (human-auditable, Obsidian-friendly), SQLite + FTS5, ChromaDB vectors, and a continuity ledger. The consolidation layer (Hippocampus: sleep-phase promotion of memories) is built but starved
• Orchestration PARTIAL: premium model as the judging brain, local models as bulk workers behind MCP tools; zero new frameworks by decision
• Surfaces PLANNED: an agent-first UI + backend; the former cheatSheets learning companion revives when content exists

Every component in every document carries a status tag (RUNS / STALLED / PLANNED / SPECULATIVE). Present tense is permitted only for RUNS. That discipline is a survivor's rule: see the post-mortem notes in plans/archive/cortex-rebrand/.

Repo map

cortex (repo: cheatSheets)/
├── SPEC.md                    # Ontology + identity (single source of truth)
├── CLAUDE.md                  # Session rules + dev orchestration model
├── PLAN.md                    # Index of active work
├── plans/                     # Active plans (currently: Loop 1) + archive/
├── exploration/               # Ideas, research, resource landscape, idea-mines
├── architecture/              # Consolidated/completed work + retired docs (with receipts)
├── DECISIONS.md               # Curated architectural decision record
├── vault/                     # Obsidian vault (learning-companion surface, STALLED)
├── knowledge-agents/          # Agent identity packs (learning surface, not yet exercised)
├── archive/                   # Scoped: ELEGOO Mega 2560 reference kit
└── .ava/                      # Curriculum engine product files (runtime gitignored)

Key documents

• SPEC.md: what Cortex is: memory model, layer ontology, entity catalog ordered by what actually exists, Loop 1 commitment
• exploration/resource-landscape.md: every technology considered, with ADOPT/TRIAL/DEFER/REJECT verdicts and named triggers
• PLAN.md: the active work index
• DECISIONS.md: why things are the way they are

License

Released under the MIT License.