---
title: Orca Cognitive Runtime
emoji: 📈
colorFrom: blue
colorTo: blue
sdk: static
pinned: false
license: apache-2.0
short_description: 'ORCA: LLM agents should reuse cognition, not recompute it'
---

# LLM Agents Should Reuse Cognition, Not Reconstruct It

Most current LLM agent systems rely on recomputing tasks from scratch via prompts.

This works, but it does not scale.

It introduces clear limitations:
- lack of composability  
- poor observability  
- limited control  

## The problem

In any engineered system, complex tasks are not re-derived from first principles every time.

They are encoded into reusable procedures.

LLM agents today violate this principle.

## The insight

Cognition should not be ephemeral.

It should be:
- structured  
- reusable  
- executable  

## ORCA: Cognitive Runtime for Agents

We introduce ORCA (Open Cognitive Runtime for Agents), a framework that separates cognition from execution.

It models cognition as:

- **Capabilities** → atomic cognitive operations  
- **Skills** → structured workflows  
- **Runtime** → execution layer  

This enables:
- reuse of cognitive structures  
- better control and observability  
- composable agent systems  

## Links

- 📄 Paper: [arXiv link]
- 💻 Code: https://github.com/gfernandf/agent-skills# LLM Agents Should Reuse Cognition, Not Reconstruct It

Most current LLM agent systems rely on recomputing tasks from scratch via prompts.

This works, but it does not scale.

It introduces clear limitations:
- lack of composability  
- poor observability  
- limited control  

## The problem

In any engineered system, complex tasks are not re-derived from first principles every time.

They are encoded into reusable procedures.

LLM agents today violate this principle.

## The insight

Cognition should not be ephemeral.

It should be:
- structured  
- reusable  
- executable  

## ORCA: Cognitive Runtime for Agents

We introduce ORCA (Open Cognitive Runtime for Agents), a framework that separates cognition from execution.

It models cognition as:

- **Capabilities** → atomic cognitive operations  
- **Skills** → structured workflows  
- **Runtime** → execution layer  

This enables:
- reuse of cognitive structures  
- better control and observability  
- composable agent systems  

## Links

- 📄 Paper: https://zenodo.org/records/19438943
- 💻 Code: https://github.com/gfernandf/agent-skills