docs/HIVE_ROADMAP.md

HIVE Roadmap

Practical roadmap for turning infj_bot + DRIFT + hive_mind into a real multi-agent cognitive system instead of a collection of disconnected features.

This plan is ordered by compounding leverage. Each phase should leave behind a usable capability, tests, and at least one operator-visible surface.

Principles

• Local-first by default: shared state should work on this machine without cloud dependencies.
• Auditable over magical: every proposal, critique, vote, and resolution should be inspectable.
• Memory with boundaries: store what helps, scrub what harms, and support forgetting.
• Safe autonomy: action flows need explicit scope, rollback, and policy-aware gates.
• Progressive federation: the single-node bot should still work well even if the full hive is partially offline.

Phase 1: Hive Visibility and Control

Status: in progress

Goals:

• Surface hive state through CLI and API.
• Make node, bus, and bridge health visible from the main bot.
• Establish a stable operator vocabulary for threads, critiques, votes, and resolutions.

Shipped in this phase:

• /hive command for local hive status
• /api/hive endpoint
• Hive summary inside the cognitive system report

Phase 2: First Consensus Loop

Status: shipped

Goals:

• Turn hive consensus into a usable feature from the main bot.
• Allow one proposal to trigger structured responses from role lanes.
• Persist the resulting thread to working memory and shared memory.

Capability:

• /hive propose <idea>
  • creates a thread
  • synthesizes role feedback from critic, architect, empath, and watcher lenses
  • casts votes
  • resolves to adopted, tabled, or needs more data
  • stores the thread outcome in hive memory

Phase 5: Elysium — Persistent Distributed Frontal Lobe

Status: shipped — 2026-05-17

Goals:

• Transform the Hive into a true persistent distributed frontal lobe.
• Give DRIFT an explicit self-model (Nexus) that learns from every decision.
• Make Council members persistent identities with memory views and energy.

Shipped:

• core/hive/elysium.py — Nexus Loop engine
• core/hive/nexus.py — persistent self-model (goals, moral stance, narrative arc, tensions)
• core/hive/council_member.py — 7 persistent voices with fractal memory filters
• Commands: /hive nexus decide <goal>, /hive reflect, /hive council status
• Background reflection wired into consciousness loop
• Health check for Elysium coherence

Phase 3: Memory Integrity Layer

Goals:

• Improve long-term reliability of hive memory.
• Add contradiction handling, validation, and retention classes.

Upgrades:

• Source-aware trust scoring
• Contradiction tagging between related memories
• Retention classes: ephemeral, durable, private, sanitized
• Forget/edit hooks from the main bot
• Better validator trails on shared memory entries

Phase 4: Long-Horizon Planning

Goals:

• Let the hive carry goals across multiple turns and failures.
• Support milestones, progress tracking, and plan repair.

Upgrades:

• Goal threads in working memory
• Milestone objects with status transitions
• Failure classification and repair strategies
• Watcher-based disruption alerts

Phase 5: Tool Orchestration Spine

Goals:

• Move from chat-centric reasoning to governed execution.
• Route high-risk actions through role-aware review.

Upgrades:

• Proposal types for tool execution, not just ideas
• Dry-run and rollback metadata
• Tool policy profiles by mode
• Shared action log across prompt, memory, and tool layers

Phase 6: Personalization With Boundaries

Goals:

• Improve continuity without turning private context into permanent clutter.

Upgrades:

• Preference classes with expiry
• Sensitivity tags
• Explicit opt-in memory domains
• Local-first user model summaries

Immediate Repo Backlog

1. Expose the first consensus loop in commands.py and the API.
2. Add tests for proposal, critique, watcher veto, and persistence behavior.
3. Add a lightweight thread summary view: /hive thread <id>.
4. Persist consensus outcomes with richer metadata for later retrieval.
5. Connect long-horizon goals to hive thread generation.

Suggested Command Surface

• /hive
• /hive propose <idea>
• /hive thread <thread_id>
• /hive stats
• /hive sync

Success Metric

The hive is worth keeping when it helps the main bot make better decisions than a single response would, and when the reasoning can be inspected afterward without guesswork.