Glossary

An autonomous executor within Obsidian that possesses genuine sovereignty — the ability to make real decisions about how to accomplish its objectives, not merely whether to execute pre-defined instructions. Agents operate within constitutional bounds, which constrain their behavior without dictating their strategy.

Agents can delegate work to sub-agents through Fractal Delegation, creating hierarchies that mirror the structure of the problem being solved. Each agent inherits its parent’s constitutional obligations and can add (but never remove) additional constraints for its children.

The twelve principles that govern all agent behavior in Obsidian. Not guidelines. Not suggestions. Not “best practices” that everyone acknowledges and nobody follows. Principles — binding, enforceable, and demonstrably correct.

The Constitution is the foundation upon which Constitutional Consensus operates. When agents need to coordinate, they evaluate proposed actions against these principles. When disputes arise, the Constitution provides unambiguous resolution. The Warden serves as its interpreter of last resort.

The property of an action or decision being consistent with all twelve constitutional principles. Not a checkbox exercise — not a rubber stamp at the end of a pipeline. Constitutional Compliance is verified at every stage of the Task Pipeline , from submission through completion.

This is the difference between a system that has rules and a system that enforces them. Every agent action, every delegation, every resource request is evaluated against the Constitution . The Warden doesn’t grant compliance — it detects non-compliance. The distinction matters.

A compliant action isn’t merely one that doesn’t violate a principle. It’s one that can demonstrate, through auditable evidence, that it considered and satisfied its constitutional obligations. In Obsidian, compliance is not assumed. It is proven.

Obsidian’s mechanism for multi-agent agreement. Unlike voting-based consensus (which optimizes for preference) or authority-based consensus (which optimizes for speed), Constitutional Consensus optimizes for correctness.

Agents reach agreement by evaluating proposed actions against the Constitution. If an action is constitutionally valid, it proceeds. If it is not, it does not. This eliminates entire categories of disagreement by making the acceptability criteria independent of agent preferences.

The mechanism by which sub-agents inherit their parent’s constitutional obligations plus any additional constraints imposed during delegation. The iron rule: constraints can only be added, never removed.

When an Agent delegates work through Fractal Delegation , the child agent receives every constraint the parent operates under — and potentially more. A parent with read-only filesystem access cannot grant its child write access. A parent bound by rate limits cannot exempt its delegates.

This is Constraint Inheritance — the thermodynamic arrow of permissions. Authority dissipates as it flows downward, never concentrates. The Constitution sets the ceiling; every delegation lowers the floor.

The pattern ensures that no chain of delegation can escalate privileges. It’s not trust-based. It’s structural. The system makes violation architecturally impossible, not merely discouraged.

The structural pattern by which agents decompose complex tasks into self-similar subtasks, delegating each to child agents that operate under inherited (and potentially augmented) constitutional constraints.

The name is not metaphorical. Complex problems genuinely contain smaller versions of themselves, and Obsidian’s delegation hierarchy mirrors this structure. Constraints can only be added during delegation, never removed — ensuring constitutional compliance flows downward through the entire tree without gaps.

The command-line interface for managing Obsidian projects. Initializes projects, submits tasks, manages agents, reports status. The human’s primary point of contact with the system.

The obs CLI embodies Principle 10: Powerful and simple aren’t opposites. Commands read like English. Full system control through consistent patterns and sensible defaults. Every command supports JSON output for automation; every operation returns meaningful exit codes.

Principle 9 demands that only the LLM should be slow. The CLI itself must be invisible in terms of overhead — instant startup, zero wasted cycles on orchestration chrome. If the user notices the CLI’s latency, the CLI has failed.

This is the operator’s cockpit. Not a dashboard. Not a portal. A precision instrument for directing Agent work through the Task Pipeline .

The multi-agent orchestration system itself. Named for volcanic glass — formed under pressure, sharp enough to cut at the molecular level, and fundamentally uncompromising in its structural integrity. Obsidian does not bend. It does not flex. It holds its shape because its shape is correct.

Written in Rust. Governed by constitutional consensus. Managed through the obs CLI.

The first principle of the Obsidian Constitution. Sovereign Autonomy means that each agent operates with genuine decision-making power within constitutional bounds — not the performative autonomy of a puppet whose strings are merely well-hidden.

An agent with sovereign autonomy chooses its own strategy, its own approach, its own sequence of operations. The Constitution tells it what not to do. Everything else is the agent’s prerogative.

The emergent property of a system where all components operate within constitutional bounds. Systemic Integrity is maintained by the Warden but not dependent on the Warden alone — it emerges from the interaction of Constitutional Compliance , Constraint Inheritance , and the Constitution itself.

This is not uptime. Not availability. Not the absence of errors. Systemic integrity means that even when components fail — and they will fail (Principle 1) — the system’s constitutional guarantees hold. Degraded functionality, yes. Violated principles, never.

The Warden monitors for integrity breaches the way a Supreme Court monitors for unconstitutional action: not by preventing every bad decision, but by maintaining the structural conditions that make the system self-correcting. Integrity is architectural, not operational.

The six-stage process through which every task flows in Obsidian: Submission, Validation, Assignment, Execution, Verification, and Completion. Each stage enforces constitutional compliance. Every stage is auditable. Every decision is traceable.

This is not a workflow engine bolted onto the side of an agent framework. The pipeline is the orchestration — the structured path through which work enters the system, gets done correctly, and exits with verifiable results.

The constitutional guardian of the Obsidian system. The Warden does not micromanage — it does not assign tasks, optimize throughput, or concern itself with the tactical details of agent execution. Instead, it watches. It validates constitutional compliance. It intervenes when principles are violated and mediates when agents cannot reach consensus.

Think of it as the Supreme Court of your multi-agent system: it does not govern, but it ensures that governance works. The Warden’s authority derives from the Constitution, not from hierarchy.