Reframe TIC from an ownerless global loop into a per-user system agent.
The events it reads live in each user's own encrypted mcp_events, the
connectors that produced them run in that user's container, and the
notifications go to that user's hub — so the previous design (built
against the ownerless Conversation bundle, writing into system.db and
notifying a hub with no subscribers) was inert by construction.
Core changes
- TicManager owns no timer and no user list. It now exposes
run_for(user_id, pool, sessions, hub): one tick for one user, over
deps unpacked from that user's UserContext. Removed from the
Conversation bundle; Skald::tic_manager() is gone.
- New spawn_system_agents in wiring.rs: one instance-wide loop, spawned
post-construction with a Weak<Skald> (like spawn_user_lifecycle).
Each pass walks the directory and runs TIC for one user at a time —
sequential, because a pass is N container round-trips and N LLM calls
nobody is waiting on. A ConfigKeyUpdated on the interval key cuts the
current wait short; enabled is re-read per pass.
- A user whose database is still locked is skipped (normal, not an
error): the pool is the unlock token, so a user who hasn't logged in
since restart has no readable events and nowhere to record a skip.
- The configured tic.security_group is re-checked per user through
run_context::reconcile_group_for_user — a restricted member never
gets a tool set their role wouldn't grant; unconfigured starts from
role_default_run_context, never None (None = catch-all = wider).
- New system_agent_runs owner table (no user_id column — the file is
the owner): start/finish split so a crash leaves a visible 'running'
row, swept to 'failed' by the next start; safe because the scheduler
is sequential and single-instance. An idle tick writes nothing.
- counting_notify wraps the notify tool so the run log can report
notifications emitted without the tool knowing it's counted.
- The session's event channel is drained by a spawned task instead of
a dropped receiver — the translator awaits its sends and would wedge
at capacity.
EventLog::{Persist,Discard} on McpManager::new
- mcp_events is an owner table and its only reader (TIC) is per-user,
so an event is something that happened to someone. The per-user
runtime gets Persist; the ownerless global runtime gets Discard (its
pool is system.db, rows would be unattributable and unread).
API + UI
- GET /api/system-agents/runs: the caller's own run history, scoped
through require_context with no admin override (same promise as the
rest of the private pool).
- web/components/system-agents.js replaces tic-sessions.js. The old
#tic debug page inferred runs from leftover ephemeral sessions; the
new #system-agents page (sidebar group 'extensions', visible to
everyone — the data is the caller's own) reads the real run log.
- i18n: tic.* keys replaced with system_agents.* in en/it/fr.
Docs
- New docs/system-agents.md (user-facing: what TIC does, why it runs
per person, why a run can be missing). Updated docs/settings.md and
docs/index.md.
- agents/tic/AGENT.md reframed per-user: events are that person's,
memory is user-memory/ (private) — never shared-memory/.
- CLAUDE.md records the system-agents design and the EventLog seam.
Memory was a scrapbook: notes accumulated, nothing kept them consistent,
and shared memory had no rule saying what belonged in it. This adopts the
LLM-wiki pattern — the assistant maintains an evolving artifact rather
than re-deriving knowledge each session.
The schema (agents/common/memory-wiki.md, included by the three type:chat
agents) adds an append-only log.md beside each index.md, names Ingest /
Recall / Lint as habits, and states the rule for shared memory: write it
there only if you would say it out loud with every member in the room.
One person's health, results or another member's opinion of them stays
private — that is what shared folders, not shared memory, are for.
Tampering is the reason the rules are shaped this way. Shared facts carry
provenance and are superseded rather than erased, and a member who
contradicts a fact they did not write gets a logged CLAIM instead of an
overwrite: only the originator or an admin can turn it into a change.
The approval gate cannot enforce this — it asks the caller, who is the
same person pushing — so a per-role write permission on shared memory is
still the real boundary. The prompt is the etiquette, not the fence.
append_file is a new fs tool because the log needs a write that cannot
shorten a file. On memory paths it is one SQL statement, so concurrent
appends (parallel tool batches, two sessions of one user) cannot lose a
line — a dropped line in an audit trail is worse than a failed write. It
is auto-allowed on shared-memory/log.md at a lower priority than the
shared write rule: gating the trail would be friction with no safety, and
a rejected log write yields an unlogged change.
memory::scaffold seeds index.md / log.md / user.md so the schema does not
describe files that do not exist. Seeded empty rather than left absent:
a missing note resolves to nothing at injection, so the model cannot tell
"nothing recorded yet" from "this mechanism is not running".
__MEMBERS__ renders the roster from users + roles instead of a note the
model maintains. A remembered copy drifts and can be talked into being
edited; this one bypasses the model entirely. users.notes are excluded —
they are the admin's private notes about a person and this block is
visible to every member.
Still open: a UI to browse memory (list_dir does not classify memory
paths yet), a tool-written revisions table (log lines are still typed by
the model), and the periodic lint pass.
dguiducci