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MERIDIAN Domain Extension: 4 New Councils Deployed

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Executive Summary

• Bastion (security) — adversarial resilience, threat modelling, compliance gates
• Compass (product) — strategic orchestration, user research backing, feature specification
• Terra (data) — cross-cutting intelligence, quality validation, ML pipeline orchestration
• Herald (marketing) — audience persuasion, brand compliance, growth analytics

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Problem: Coverage Gaps

1. Security — Treated as ops sub-concern, but threat modelling and compliance are qualitatively different from reliability engineering
2. Product — No dedicated domain for user research, roadmapping, UX audit, feature specification
3. Data — Scattered across neuro, finance, and other domains; should be a cross-cutting capability layer
4. Marketing — Documentation (reference) is fundamentally different from persuasion (audience strategy)

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Solution: Domain Absorption Test + Capacity Constraint

• Security, Product, Data, Marketing (accepted) ✓
• Education, Design, Sales, Real Estate (deferred or absorbed)

1. Absorption test: Could domain X be absorbed into domain Y via skill bindings? If no → new domain justified
2. Capacity constraint: SPUH 4-bit fields allow 16 domains (0b0000–0b1111); 0b0000 reserved. So max 15 domains
3. Protection model uniqueness: Does the domain exercise FM-04 (protected agents) in a qualitatively new way?

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Why Each New Domain Stands Alone

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Design Insights

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1. FM-04 as Domain Test Vector

• Bastion (security): Compliance findings are immutable — they must hold in all chain compositions
• Compass (product): Feature decisions require research evidence — opinion cannot override data
• Terra (data): Quality gates are immutable — pipelines must pass validation before shipping
• Herald (marketing): Brand compliance is immutable — external content must pass review

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2. Council Design Pattern Consistency

• 5-agent rosters: Specialist role + reviewer + executor + communicator + lead
• Thematic Martian references: Bastion (fortress terminology), Compass (navigation), Terra (geological), Herald (town crier)
• Capability reuse: All 20 agents map to existing 11-capability set—no new capabilities required
• Gate authority clarity: One agent per council has gate_authority: true, approves lifecycle transitions

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3. SPUH Headroom Exhaustion

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Operational Impact

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For Workflow Designers

• Chain composition now has 4 new councils to reference (council/bastion, council/compass, council/terra, council/herald)
• Protected agent enforcement now spans security, product, data, and marketing — not just technical domains
• Gate authority patterns can be tested across commercial (marketing), strategic (product), and adversarial (security) contexts

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For the CI Pipeline

• FM-04 checks now validate 4 additional protected agent requirements
• FM-09 checks (unknown agent) now recognize 20 new agent designations
• Domain validation now accepts security, product, data, marketing in unit headers

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For Documentation

• Council registry grows from 10 to 14 councils (3 active + 1 planned → 3 active + 11 planned)
• MERIDIAN app displays all 15 domains; agent pages show 5-agent rosters for each new council

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Technical Artifacts

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Code Changes

• Commit: 812c53e — 5 files changed, 162 insertions
• Schema: packages/schema/src/constants.ts — Added 4 domains and SPUH bits
• Councils: councils/{bastion,compass,terra,herald}/council.yaml — Full rosters with FM-04 enforcement

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Documentation

• Skills: atlas/atlas/skills/{DOMAINS-AND-COUNCILS-DESIGN,DOMAIN-EXTENSION-IMPLEMENTATION}.skill.md
• Prompt ops: atlas/prompt-ops/council-agent-generator.md — Reusable A2A template
• Gists: BUILD-SUMMARY-UPDATED.md + 5 council YAMLs

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Testing / Validation Needed

• Schema type checking passes
• Council YAML files created and syntactically valid
• Council loader (packages/cli/src/lib/council.ts) successfully reads all 4 YAMLs
• FM-04 enforcement works: chains referencing bastion/compass/terra/herald must include protected agents
• FM-09 enforcement works: agent designations must exist in council rosters
• Test fixtures (packages/graph/tests/fixtures.ts) include factories for new councils
• MERIDIAN app loads and displays all 15 councils

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Follow-Up Work

1. Planned councils materialization: 7 councils (dendrite, agora, vitalis, codex, obscura, atelier, crucible) exist in getPlannedCouncils() memory but not as YAML. Promote them in a separate initiative.
2. Capability expansion: If new agent roles require capabilities beyond the 11, add to CAPABILITIES constant (e.g., research, synthesis). This is a breaking change.
3. Domain grouping formalisation: The 4 categories (Technical, Strategic, Intelligence, Professional, Science, Creative) are currently informal. Consider adding a domain_category field to the schema for better navigation and policy enforcement.
4. 5-bit migration planning: Schedule the migration from 4-bit to 5-bit SPUH fields as a future major release. This is required to add a 16th domain and will break all existing unit fingerprints.

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Key Learning