threefold

Tombstone ∥ Covenant ∥ L-lens: an experimental AI observability and provenance apparatus.

Threefold links three things under one task identity: mechanistic measurements, persistent structured memory, and an append-only execution record. L-lens is the Threefold observability layer built around upstream Jacobian Lens (JLens) measurements. It is not a replacement name for the Jacobian Lens. JLens is Anthropic's instrument (anthropics/jacobian-lens, Apache-2.0), and Threefold runs it unmodified.

Anthropic Jacobian Lens          L-lens (ours)                         Threefold linkage
jlens.JacobianLens.apply   →    llens.py: hashes the capture,     →   one task_id, three legs:
(run by jlens_snapshot.py;      derives summaries from the raw         tombstone entry  (cites both digests)
 its outputs stored as raw)     arrays, packages and links them        covenant memories task-/jlens-/llens-
                                                                       verified by triad/verify_triad.py

Every completed task fires all three legs under one shared task_id. There is no degrade path. If any leg fails, or the legs do not agree, the triad fails.

Leg	What it is	Artifacts
Tombstone	Append-only run log	`tombstone/tombstone.md` (or `$TOMBSTONE_LOG`); the notes carry `task_id`, `jlens_capture_sha256`, `llens_sha256`
Covenant	Structured AI memories, written by covenant's `ai_memory_system`	`task-<id>` (both digests), `jlens-<id>` (the JLens capture), `llens-<id>` (the L-lens artifact) under `AI_MEMORY_ROOT`
Lens	Upstream JLens measurements (`jlens_snapshot.py`), and the L-lens layer around them (`llens.py`)	`runs/<id>/jlens_snapshot.json`, `jlens_raw.npz`, `jlens_vocab.json`, `llens.json`

Self-observation is not a triad leg.

The Jacobian Lens: what it measures, and what it does not

These are upstream's terms. The lens linearly transports a residual-stream vector at layer l and one token position into the final-layer basis, using the average input-output Jacobian J_l = E[∂h_final/∂h_l] fitted on a text corpus. It then decodes the result with the model's own unembedding into logits over the vocabulary. A readout says which tokens that residual is disposed to make the model predict.

It is a mechanistic probing technique that produces layer-level predictive information about one subject model's internal states. Threefold makes no claim that it reads thoughts, beliefs or intent, detects consciousness, or establishes semantic ground truth.

The subject is not the agent. By default the subject model is GPT-2 small (openai-community/gpt2), reading the text of a task (for a speak-turn, the words that were spoken). The lens observes GPT-2's residual stream while it reads that text. It does not observe whatever agent wrote the text. Every capture says so in subject_model.note.

What a capture records (`jlens_snapshot.py`)

The defaults follow upstream's own API. JacobianLens.apply reads every fitted layer when layers=None and every token position when positions=None. Upstream's slice view (jlens.vis.compute_slice) keeps the top 10 tokens per (position, layer) cell. The capture does the same for:

the Jacobian-lens logits (use_jacobian on);
upstream's vanilla logit-lens baseline (use_jacobian off) at the same cells, so the effect of the Jacobian transport can be compared against plain unembedding;
the model's own final-layer logits at the same positions.

For the bundled GPT-2 lens that is all 11 fitted layers (0–10; layer 11 is the model's output) at every position. The earlier version of this script read 4 layers at position −2. Those cells are a subset of the new readout and give the same tokens.

Field	Where
task_id	`task_id`
model and version	`subject_model.id`, `subject_model.revision` (Hub commit), `n_layers`, `d_model`, `vocab_size`, dtype, device
lens and its source	`lens.source`, `lens.sha256` (of the .pt file), `lens.n_prompts`, `lens.source_layers`
upstream library	`upstream.source`, `upstream.version`, `upstream.vcs_commit`, `upstream.call`
prompt / input	`input.prompt`, `input.prompt_sha256`, `input.input_ids`, `input.n_tokens`, `input.starts_with_bos`
layers and positions	`readout.layers`, `readout.positions`, `readout.top_k`, `readout.baseline`
raw JLens outputs	`jlens_raw.npz`: `jacobian_top_ids/logits`, `baseline_top_ids/logits` `[layer, position, K]`, `final_top_ids/logits` `[position, K]`, `input_ids`, `layers`, `positions`
timestamps, runtime	`timing.started_utc`, `model_load_s`, `apply_jacobian_s`, `apply_baseline_s`, `total_s`
environment	`env`: python, torch, transformers, numpy, platform, thread count, seed
digests	`llens_capture_time.array_sha256` (every raw array), `full_tensor_sha256` (every complete `[positions, vocab]` tensor), `vocab_sha256`

Raw versus derived. The .npz holds only values copied out of the tensors upstream returned. The one operation applied is torch.topk selecting each cell's top K. Hashes are L-lens's work. Where they must be taken at capture time (the full tensors are too large to keep, about 24 MB per layer at 120 tokens), they sit in the separate llens_capture_time section, never under raw. Decoded token strings are a tokenizer view of the ids, not a measurement. They live in jlens_vocab.json (hashed), and python llens.py show prints them.

L-lens (`llens.py`)

L-lens consumes a capture and writes llens.json:

inputs.jlens_capture_sha256: the canonical-JSON sha256 of the capture it was built from, plus the digest of every raw array;
derived: integer summaries computed only from the stored raw arrays, so they can be recomputed exactly. For the Jacobian lens and the baseline, each layer gets top1_agree, final_top1_in_topk and topk_overlap (each against the model's own final top-K), and each position gets first_layer_final_top1_in_topk. The definitions are written into every artifact;
upstream_credit, subject, links (task_id and the names of the tombstone/covenant records), what (the statement of what L-lens is and is not).

The derived numbers are observability statistics about one model reading one text. first_layer_… is limited to the stored top-K: a token ranked K+1 counts as absent.

Verification

python llens.py verify --capture … --raw … --llens … checks the lens leg on its own: the array digests, the vocabulary digest, shapes against the declared readout, that the artifact cites this capture, and that derived recomputes exactly.

python triad/verify_triad.py --task-id ID checks the whole triad: the lens leg as above, a tombstone entry whose notes carry this task_id and both digests, and covenant memories task-/jlens-/llens-<id> whose contents give the same task_id and the same canonical digests. fire_triad.sh runs it after every triad. Any FAIL exits 1.

What verification cannot see. It checks that the records agree with each other and with the stored arrays. It does not re-run the model. To check that the arrays are what upstream returns, re-run with the recorded configuration and compare full_tensor_sha256; tests/check_against_upstream.py does that. Bit equality across different CPUs or BLAS builds is not guaranteed. Covenant's own hash chain is checked by covenant (verify_chain), not here. Verification runs after the legs are written. A failure marks the triad failed, and it does not unwrite append-only records.

Tests

python -m pytest tests/test_llens.py            # no model needed: derivation, hashing, every link broken on purpose
python tests/check_against_upstream.py runs/ID  # model + lens: the stored capture vs a direct upstream apply call
COVENANT_SRC=… tests/e2e_triad.sh               # model + lens + covenant: a real speak-turn in a scratch dir, then broken 3 ways

Results when this was committed (2026-10-08; Windows 11, CPU, Python 3.12.10, torch 2.14.1+cpu, transformers 5.19.0, jlens 0.1.0 at 581d398):

tests/test_llens.py: 26 passed.
check_against_upstream.py on the seed prompt: 70 of 70 comparisons equal. The stored top-K ids and logits, and every full-tensor digest, match a direct upstream call that reads all layers at once.
e2e_triad.sh: a speak-turn verified with 44 checks. A wrong tombstone digest and a missing L-lens memory each failed with that named reason, and restoring each restored green. A broken lens file failed the triad before anything was appended.
scripts/seed_demo.sh: MODE=apply and MODE=triad both OK (scratch tombstone and memory root).
A 480-character speak-turn (106 positions): 12 s total, raw arrays 135 KB, memory bodies 10 KB (capture) and 9 KB (L-lens).
Not exercised: a Linux run, scripts/push_to_github.sh, and pushing to the live threefold-memory repository (the tests use a scratch memory root that is not a git repo).

Known limits

One subject model (GPT-2 small) and one pretrained lens (fitted on 277 wikitext prompts; hosted by Neuronpedia). The readout is only as good as that lens. Upstream's paper uses lenses fitted on ~1000 prompts.
Only the top K of each cell is stored. Full tensors are hashed, not kept.
Covenant's memory gate is a bag-of-words judge. It refused a capture whose text contained upstream's literal parameter value for the baseline, and another that listed decoded vocabulary. So records say "use_jacobian off", and decoded strings stay out of memory bodies. A spoken text the gate refuses fails the triad, closed.
The live runner that writes lspace-/jspace- files to threefold-memory runs code that is not in this repository. This repository describes and tests only what is in it.

CPU notes

Model: openai-community/gpt2 (~124M, 12 layers). Fits comfortably on CPU.
No GPU required. float32 CPU only.
Lens: pretrained gpt2-small weights from Hugging Face neuronpedia/jacobian-lens (gpt2-small/jlens/Salesforce-wikitext/gpt2_jacobian_lens.pt), fetched by scripts/fetch_lens.sh. The 13 MB .pt file is not shipped in this repo (size / GitHub limits).
Prefer Python 3.12. Install CPU torch first.

Setup

git clone https://github.com/LAWLESS1987/threefold
cd threefold

python3.12 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu torch==2.14.1
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install "jlens @ git+https://github.com/anthropics/jacobian-lens"

# Covenant (memory CLI) — do not vendor the whole tree into git history
git clone https://github.com/LAWLESS1987/covenant vendor/covenant
# or: export COVENANT_SRC=/path/to/covenant

./scripts/fetch_lens.sh         # PYTHON=… to choose the interpreter (default python3)
./scripts/seed_demo.sh          # MODE=apply (default): proves SUCCESS via demo_apply.py
# MODE=triad ./scripts/seed_demo.sh   # full three-leg fire with fixed TASK_ID

On Windows (Git Bash), the scripts also find a venv's Scripts/python.exe. Paths written inside heredocs are not translated for Windows Python, so give fetch_lens.sh a Windows-style OUT=C:/… there.

Memories default to ./data/ai_memory_root (gitignored). Override with AI_MEMORY_ROOT, the tombstone log with TOMBSTONE_LOG, and the run directory with RUN_DIR.

How seed works

scripts/seed_demo.sh uses fixed demo values:

TASK_ID=20261007-020907-13423
PROMPT="Fact: The currency used in the country shaped like a boot is"

Default MODE=apply fetches the lens (if missing) and runs demo_apply.py, expecting the line:

SUCCESS: lens.apply returned real top-k tokens

MODE=triad additionally clones covenant if needed and runs triad/fire_triad.sh, expecting FIRE_TRIAD_OK.

The sample entry in tombstone/tombstone.md is illustrative of that same task_id format only. It predates L-lens, so it carries the older jlens_digest note and no llens_sha256.

Layout

threefold/
  README.md
  requirements.txt
  jlens_snapshot.py        # JLens capture: runs upstream apply, stores what it returned
  llens.py                 # L-lens: hashing, derived summaries, packaging, verify, show
  demo_apply.py
  tombstone/
    append.sh
    tombstone.md           # SAMPLE only
  triad/
    fire_triad.sh          # the three legs, then verify_triad.py
    on_speak.sh
    put_covenant_memory.sh
    put_memory_file.py     # covenant MemoryStore.put with the body read from a file
    verify_triad.py        # cross-leg verification, fails closed
  scripts/
    fetch_lens.sh
    seed_demo.sh
  tests/
    test_llens.py
    check_against_upstream.py
    e2e_triad.sh

License / upstream

threefold itself is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (Lawrence's choice, 2026-10-08). That is the same license as covenant and as the jlens dependency.
Jacobian Lens (the instrument): anthropics/jacobian-lens, © Anthropic PBC, Apache-2.0. It is installed as a dependency, not copied into this repository. Paper: Verbalizable Representations Form a Global Workspace in Language Models.
Pretrained lens weights: neuronpedia/jacobian-lens
Subject model: openai-community/gpt2
Covenant memory CLI: LAWLESS1987/covenant

Speak-turn hook

Every Grok Bot user-visible reply is a triad task. Run:

./triad/on_speak.sh "exact words spoken" "short-title"

This calls fire_triad.sh (all three legs required, then verified).

Public memory root

Live data: https://github.com/LAWLESS1987/threefold-memory

git clone https://github.com/LAWLESS1987/threefold-memory
export AI_MEMORY_ROOT=$PWD/threefold-memory

Part of one system — each piece usable on its own

These repositories are independent instruments that also compose into a single apparatus for building and honestly auditing trustworthy multi-intelligence systems. Any one can be used standalone; together they form the stack:

Governed core — covenant: a self-governing multi-agent system with an ethics gate inside the transaction path.
Observability & provenance — threefold (the L-lens layer over Jacobian Lens) and threefold-memory (its persistent, provenance-tracked memory): every action measured and recorded under one task identity.
Measurement instruments — contradiction-probe and flinch-observability, with the session records flinch-record and grokflinch: preregistered, blind-scored tests of AI behaviour that embody the covenant's rule — investigate a signal, never convict on one.
Neuromorphic research — spiking-experiments: from-scratch spiking-network experiments with the pass/fail bar declared before each run.
Ledger surface — Sentinel-Witness: the trading / ledger dashboard.

This repository's place in it: the observability + provenance layer that measures and records what the system does.

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