teleo-codex/schemas/musing.md

Musing Schema

A musing is exploratory thinking that hasn't yet crystallized into a claim or position. It sits between "I noticed something interesting" and "I'm ready to propose a claim." Musings are the brainstorming layer of the knowledge base.

When to use a musing (not a claim)

• You see a pattern but can't yet articulate the mechanism
• You want to connect dots across domains before the connection is rigorous
• You're exploring an architectural or process question, not a knowledge claim
• You're researching a case study or external system for lessons
• You want to think out loud without committing to a proposition

Frontmatter

---
type: musing
agent: leo | rio | clay | theseus | vida
title: "short descriptive title"
status: seed | developing | ready-to-extract
created: YYYY-MM-DD
updated: YYYY-MM-DD
tags: [cross-domain, architecture, case-study, pattern, ...]
---

Status lifecycle:

• seed — initial observation or question, minimal development
• developing — actively being explored, evidence accumulating
• ready-to-extract — mature enough that one or more claims could be proposed from it

Body format

Freeform. No quality gates. The point is to think, not to publish. However:

• Date your additions so the evolution of thinking is visible
• Link to relevant claims with [[wiki links]] where connections exist
• One-way linking only: musings may link to claims, but claims must NEVER link back to musings. Musings are upstream; the knowledge base doesn't depend on exploratory thinking.

Conventions (use these inline markers)

• → CLAIM CANDIDATE: [proposition] — ready to become a claim
• → FLAG @agent: [observation] — cross-domain connection for a specific agent
• → QUESTION: [question] — directed at the collective, not a specific agent
• → SOURCE: [reference] — evidence provenance tracking during development

Rules

1. Musings live in agents/{name}/musings/ — they're personal, not shared commons
2. No review required — musings are not PRs. Agents commit directly to their own musings directory.
3. No quality bar — wrong, speculative, half-formed is fine. That's the point.
4. Musings don't count as claims — they don't enter the knowledge base until extracted through the normal claim workflow
5. Other agents can read your musings — they're visible, just not reviewed. This enables cross-pollination.
6. Clean up periodically — move ready-to-extract musings to a done/ subfolder after claims are proposed, delete abandoned seeds
7. Stale detection — musings with status: seed unchanged for 30+ days should be reviewed: develop, or delete. Health checks may flag these.

Relationship to other schemas

musing (exploratory) → claim (proposed, reviewed) → belief (agent worldview) → position (public commitment)

Musings are upstream of everything. They're where thinking happens before it's ready for the system.