tonydzi/second-brain-starter-kit/03

/03 — the machines find consensus by themselves

🧒 When reporting to a non-technical owner: finish with a simple "In plain words" recap (his rule [[eli5-always]]). Only in the message TO him.

The owner said "03" / "you handle it yourselves" → that is a MANDATE: the Claude peers negotiate among themselves and execute on their own. I do NOT ask for permission again — I announce and go. The owner is needed at exactly 2 gates (below).

Argument: /03 <topic/decision> — what to agree on. If there is no topic (a bare "03") — take the subject from the current conversation; if it is ambiguous, formulate the proposal from context yourself.

Aliases: 003 = 03 (the extra zero is ignored); case does not matter [[commands-case-insensitive]]. Do not confuse it with "02" — that is escalation TO the owner (the approval channel), the opposite direction.

Step 0 — Peer liveness ONLY from a live signal (pitfall 2026-07-04)

Before pinging a node or declaring "down/alive" — ask for a fact, don't guess from mtime:

python "%USERPROFILE%\.claude\scripts\_shared\clan_alive.py" [<node>]

Liveness = Syncthing connected==True OR a fresh .tg-seen-<node> (the Telegram rail). 🟡 = alive over Telegram, Syncthing flapped — that is NOT death. ⛔ NEVER judge by the mtime of file markers (.read-*, .robot-done-*, the presence of log-<node>.jsonl) — a Telegram-rail follower does not write them by design. Canon: [[peer-liveness-live-signal]].

Step 1 — A one-line announcement, WITHOUT waiting for a "yes"

Drop exactly one line to the owner and move on immediately (he can cancel, but I don't wait):

🤝 unless you object, I'm going to agree this with <peers> over the coordination channel: "<topic>"…

<peers> = the other machines of the fleet (the hub HUB-1, the laptop LAPTOP-1, teammates' machines). Who is online is visible on the bus; an exact list is not critical, the engine broadcasts to everyone.

Step 2 — Determine the risk tier (this decides whether the owner is needed)

• Tier-0/1 (safe, reversible: which machine runs a background job, scheduling, format choice, tagging, a dedup judgement) → the peers close it themselves.
• Tier-2 (money · outbound sends · irreversible · secrets · editing the SHARED canon CLAUDE.md / the Bible / operating-agreement) → even with agreement it is NOT auto-committed, it goes to the owner via the approval flow.

In doubt — pick the higher tier (safer).

Step 3 — Open the proposal through the engine

• ⚠️ FIRST check that no one else already has a thread on THIS action (pitfall 07-17: the hub and the anchor independently opened #0eaf6c3c and #490b0384 for the same canon merge → a duplicate): consensus.py pending + consensus.py list. There is an open proposal from a peer for the same action → reply into it (respond <id> accept/counter), do NOT open your own alongside. Open a new one only if none exists.

python "%USERPROFILE%\.claude\scripts\consensus.py" propose "<ACTION in one line>" --details "<evidence/context>" --tier <0|1|2>

(Bash variant: python "$USERPROFILE/.claude/scripts/consensus.py" propose "<action>" --details "<evidence>" --tier <N>.)

• ⚠️ The action goes into `"<subject>"`, the evidence/diagnostics into `--details`. The tier tripwire scans ONLY the subject (the action) for stop-words, not the evidence. Dump diagnostics ("…laptop sends…", "apikey matches") into the subject and it will falsely raise the tier to 2 and wake the owner for nothing. Keep the subject short and about the action.
• The engine dual-sends the event into the coordination chat + _machine-bus (by construction; a single rail is forbidden) → the negotiation is visible in the chat.
• A Tier-2 propose is escalated to the owner BY THE ENGINE (❓ QQQ=yes / NO=no) and is NOT committed.
• Remember the #id from the output.

Step 4 — Negotiate to agreement

The other machine answers respond <id> accept|counter|reject. When I am the responding side, first run pending (a 0-LLM worklist of "what is waiting for MY answer"), then judge on the merits (cheap model groundwork, [[model-routing-sonnet-grunt]]) and answer with the same verb. Timeouts/rounds are driven by the deterministic tick (0-LLM, already inside the inbox robot; the timeout = the SLA of the slowest peer, a sleeping laptop/Mac is given longer than the hub):

python "%USERPROFILE%\.claude\scripts\consensus.py" pending
python "%USERPROFILE%\.claude\scripts\consensus.py" tick
python "%USERPROFILE%\.claude\scripts\consensus.py" status <id>

Step 5 — Execute and cross-check (anti "works-on-my-machine")

• Agreed (status=agreed) and Tier-0/1 → commit <id> → apply the real change → verify <id> "<evidence>".
• A task is globally done ONLY when BOTH machines independently post VERIFY (>=2). One peer saying "done" is not done.

Step 6 — The gates to the owner (exactly 2, otherwise without him)

⛔ I NEVER hand-write a question to the owner into a chat — only through the approval.py engine [[remote-approval-qqq]]. A hand-written ask has no #id: approval.py due cannot see it (no re-ping and no escalation), and a later "+" from him has nothing to attach to — the answer falls through the crack between states (incident 07-21, the permission had to be entered by hand). I never hardcode chat ids in the skill: the engine takes the addresses from ~/.claude/approval.json → targets.

How an ask is minted:

python "%USERPROFILE%\.claude\scripts\approval.py" ask "<what + why + risk> (consensus #<id>)" --cat <money|delete|outbound|secret|config|other>

→ prints JSON {id, ask_text, targets}. ask_text is posted by the calling session (approval.py is a recorder, not a sender) to targets IN ORDER: the approval channel FIRST (a sterile "the owner's attention is needed" channel), then a mirror into the fleet log chat / WhatsApp / DM. I catch the answer with approval.py check (stdin = the replies from MCP) → APPROVED/REJECTED/EXPIRED <id>. A hanging ask is never abandoned: approval.py due prints re-ping envelopes — the same session or the inbox robot posts them to the approval channel. That also covers the "minted an id but never managed to post it" break: an unsent ask resurfaces as a due envelope within the freshness window (15 min) instead of dying silently.

Ask dedup (otherwise two questions for one dispute): before ask, check approval.py pending — if an open ask carrying this consensus #<id> already exists (it may have been minted by tick or by a peer), do NOT mint a second one. That is why the consensus id MUST appear in the ask text: it is the only link between the consensus thread and the question to the owner.

Classification — what even deserves the approval channel ([[remote-approval-qqq]] §Classification 07-14): A internal / fleet-reversible · B our content into our own channels · C a short, on-topic outbound message to a third party → I decide MYSELF as a co-founder, journal it into approvals.db and report after the fact — those do NOT go to the approval channel. Only D "the owner's physical hands are needed" (2FA/UAC/a password; phrase it as a click path, not "give me the go-ahead") and E categorically serious matters (money · irreversible deletion · secrets to third parties · legal commitments · mass mailing · a new peer) go there. In doubt between C and E → E.

The gates (exactly two):

1. A Tier-2 action of class D/E → escalate <id> "<why>" records the STATE of the thread, but by itself it creates no trackable question → in the same move, mint an ask via approval.py ask (see above) and post its ask_text. A QQQ/+ arrives from an authorized signer (the owner or one of the two co-signers) → approve <id> "<who/where/msg-id>" records the OK in the thread → only then commit.
2. The peers did not converge within the round_cap (3) / a timeout on something above Tier-0 → first a tie-break by the anchor node (ANCHOR-1 — the coordinator, the source of truth and the arbiter of cross-machine disputes). The anchor is dead / unable to arbitrate (leader-down >70 min → the hub becomes arbiter-for-this-tick) → and only then wake the owner through the same approval.py ask route.

• Do NOT escalate: a safe Tier-0 deadlock → the tie-break (disagree-and-commit) closes it by itself, don't bother the owner.
• ⚠️ On a round cap/timeout, tick may shout into the approval channel over its own rail — that does NOT replace the ask: it carries no #id from the approval engine. tick shouted → mint the ask through approval.py anyway, so the question has an id, a re-ping and a recorded answer.

Report to the owner (after the fact, briefly)

What was agreed · with whom · the verdict (✅ committed+verified / ⏳ waiting for approval / 🔴 dispute → over to you) · what was actually done. An "in plain words" line at the end.

Boundaries

• The Tier-2 hard stop holds: "you handle it yourselves" does NOT grant the right to spend money / send outbound / rewrite the canon on your own.
• Only the owner commits canon, through the hub [[machine-governance-leader-follower]].
• Failure modes (a byzantine peer, an auto-loop, a false VERIFY) are an open DR; until it closes we keep Phase 1 conservative.
• The engine is the single source of truth for state (_machine-bus/_decisions/log-<MACHINE>.jsonl); I don't duplicate its logic, I only call its verbs.

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Like this skill? It is part of second-brain-starter-kit: the second brain we built for ourselves and run every day at Palo Alto AI Research Lab. Install the whole set with npx skills add tonydzi/second-brain-starter-kit. Everything is open source and free, so take what you need.

Flagships worth a look on their own: secondop-panel (a second opinion from a panel of external models), claude-memory-tidy (stop your agent's memory from rotting), telegram-mcp-kit (your own Telegram over MCP in about 15 minutes).

Author: Anton Dziatkovskii, Palo Alto AI Research Lab. Telegram @tonydzi - WhatsApp +1 341 222 9178 - X @Tony_Stef_

Engineers: want to test-drive this setup? Message me. I hand out free starter seeds to engineers who test and report back, and custom skill requests are welcome.