The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 4,828 atoms across 8 types and 2 molecules
Design minimal viable agents to execute in under two minutes with zero preparation before attempting multi-step sequences, because automaticity requires low activation energy and activation energy must be minimized before sophistication is added.
When agent sub-behaviors can execute independently without logical dependency, separate them into distinct agents with independent triggers rather than coupling them into sequences, because coupled agents produce cascading failures.
Document every agent in a structured five-component format: (1) Name, (2) Trigger, (3) Conditions, (4) Actions, (5) Success criteria, to enable systematic review and prevent silent degradation.
Write agent action steps as specific ordered procedures rather than aspirations or principles, requiring sufficient granularity that someone unfamiliar could execute them without clarification.
Maintain a failure log where every agent misfire is recorded with date, agent name, what happened, and hypothesis about why, then review weekly to extract patterns.
When an agent fails, diagnose which component broke—trigger (never activated), condition (activated but context wasn't right), or action (executed but too vague/complex)—before attempting any redesign.
Fix only one component (trigger, condition, or action) per agent iteration rather than redesigning multiple components simultaneously, to maintain causal attribution of what changes produced which effects.
Before building any agent, explicitly name the schema it operates on by writing what the agent assumes about how the world works, because unexamined schemas produce systematically wrong outputs despite reliable execution.
After any difficult social interaction, complete a 5-minute written debrief comparing what your social agent prescribed versus what you actually did, documenting the gap to update the agent based on real behavioral data.
When a decision situation represents a once-in-career strategic pivot rather than a routine recurrence, suspend your decision agent and return to full deliberation even if the agent would produce an answer.
After each decision agent activation, update the agent's criteria based on whether they produced a good outcome, treating the agent as a living heuristic that improves with each use rather than a permanent law.
For sleep agents, set a hard time-based trigger (like 9:30 PM) rather than a subjective state trigger (like 'when I feel tired'), because fatigued brains systematically misjudge their own tiredness.
Build nutrition agents at the meal preparation layer (Sunday evening meal prep) rather than the consumption layer (what to eat when hungry), because deciding what to eat while hungry and facing an open refrigerator is too late to override depletion.
For stress management agents, use physiological signals (chest tightening, jaw clenching, shallow breathing) as triggers rather than cognitive assessments ('when I feel stressed'), because stress impairs the self-assessment capacity needed to recognize stress.
When discovering that your designed agents conflict with each other, resolve the conflict through documented priority hierarchies rather than case-by-case deliberation, making the resolution rule itself part of your agent system.
Build feedback loops into agent systems through regular review asking whether agents fired, whether they produced intended outcomes, and whether conditions have changed, treating review as essential maintenance not optional improvement.
Design triggers using the camera test: if a video camera could not detect the exact moment the trigger fires, the trigger is too vague to fire reliably and must be replaced with an observable event.
When a trigger depends on detecting an internal state, classify it as high-risk and either replace it with an external observable event or invest in deliberate interoceptive calibration before trusting it operationally.
Place environmental trigger objects at eye level or in the direct path of existing routines rather than in convenient storage locations, maximizing visibility over proximity.
Protect the first five consecutive executions of any new time-based trigger as non-negotiable, treating early repetitions as infrastructure investment that determines whether the trigger becomes automatic or dies silently.
Stack temporal triggers with spatial and state anchors (specific time plus specific location plus specific preceding action) to create redundant activation pathways that survive if any single trigger component fails.
Remove or relocate objects that afford unwanted behaviors before adding objects that afford desired behaviors, because elimination removes temptation entirely while addition only competes for attention.
When an environmental trigger requires daily resetting or maintenance to remain visible, replace it with a static persistent cue that survives without intervention, because maintenance costs compound and cause trigger decay.
When designing emotional trigger agents, ensure the action is executable within the emotional state itself rather than requiring the emotion to already be regulated.