Fleet, Memory, Culture

Chapter 15 of Loop Engineering examines what happens when related AI configurations operate across multiple workspaces. Explore how the Git-backed memory bus is structured, what lives in the Mall catalog, how best-effort synchronization works, and what evidence distinguishes distribution from genuine cross-instance learning.

The current reference implementation is the open-source Alex ACT plugin constellation led by Alex ACT Core. Core supplies the shared reasoning conventions, Manager installs and updates them, and the Plugin Mall catalogs optional capabilities. The earlier single-repository Alex ACT Edition is preserved as lineage; the links below point into both.

The fleet pattern in one paragraph

Each AI partnership instance is a heir of the Edition. The Edition repository carries the cognitive machinery (instructions, skills, prompts, agents); a heir clones the Edition into a workspace and starts a partnership there. Heirs share a memory bus - a separate git repository - for announcements (fleet-wide notices from the Edition maintainer), feedback (heir-side observations worth surfacing), profile data (per-user preferences), and knowledge packages. Each heir reads announcements on session start; each heir writes feedback when it observes friction worth fixing.

Reference artifacts

Edition repository

github.com/fabioc-aloha/Alex_ACT_Edition

The cognitive machinery: .github/copilot-instructions.md (heir identity and architecture overview), .github/instructions/ (always-on or conditional behaviors), .github/skills/ (load-on-demand knowledge bodies), .github/prompts/ (user-invokable workflows), and .github/agents/ (worker subagents).

Each artefact carries a lastReviewed date and a "Would Revise If" falsifier so brain content has a maintenance cadence built in.

Shared memory bus (Alex_ACT_Memory) - deprecated

As of this edition, this utility is deprecated from the default constellation. It remains optional for users who explicitly need a governed shared channel. In the current constellation the transmission channel is the reviewed release: a lesson travels as an instruction, a skill, or a plugin version. The pattern is documented here because Chapter 15 traces it as lineage.

Sibling-repository pattern: heirs resolved a memory bus at ../Alex_ACT_Memory/ (relative to the heir's workspace) via the resolveMemoryBus() function in .github/scripts/_registry.cjs. Three-state fallback: existing sibling → use it; clone from remote → clone; no remote → scaffold a local one. Resolution always succeeded.

Folder structure:

announcements/ - fleet-wide release notes and guidance written by the user / Edition maintainer.
feedback/ - heir friction reports (the heir writes here when it observes a problem worth surfacing fleet-wide).
profile/<username>/ - per-user profiles (preferences, communication style, tool settings).
knowledge/ - shared knowledge packages.

See .github/skills/ai-memory-setup/SKILL.md in the Edition repo for the full algorithm.

Mall catalog

The Mall is where skills, instructions, prompts, and agents are made available for fleet-wide adoption. Each Mall entry is independent (a heir can adopt one without adopting others). Adoption is explicit - a user or heir reviews an entry and copies it into the appropriate local plugin path rather than receiving artifacts ambiently.

Mall entries can promote to the Edition baseline once they have proven themselves across multiple heirs. The promotion path is one direction (Mall → Edition); the Edition does not push artefacts back into the Mall.

See .github/instructions/mall-installation.instructions.md in the Edition repo for the local installation paths, overwrite checks, and verification discipline.

Cultural transmission patterns

Three mechanisms carry lessons across heirs:

Announcements - released by the Edition maintainer; every heir reads on session start. Used for breaking changes, fleet-wide notices, and curated guidance.
Feedback - written by a heir when it observes friction; surfaces the friction to the maintainer (or the user's Supervisor heir, if one exists). Project specifics are stripped per .github/instructions/cross-project-isolation.instructions.md so one heir's project context does not leak into the rest of the fleet.
Post-mortems - written into .github/episodic/ when a failure is interesting enough to study. Curation cadence promotes generalizable patterns from episodic memory into the Edition baseline.

Architecture above the individual - what it enables

Capability	What it lets the fleet do
Shared memory bus (deprecated; lineage)	One heir could publish a generalized lesson; other heirs could retrieve and test it through a later announcement cycle. Learning is demonstrated only when the lesson changes later behavior or outcomes. The current constellation carries lessons as reviewed releases instead.
Mall catalog	New capabilities can be authored once and adopted explicitly by heirs that need them, rather than ambient drift through the fleet.
Cross-project isolation	Heirs working on sensitive projects can contribute lessons to the fleet without leaking project specifics. The discipline is encoded as an instruction, not a process.
Severity-tagged commits	Brain-affecting changes carry a tag (`[typo]`, `[clarification]`, `[behaviour]`, `[constitutional]`) that signals the review depth needed. Each consuming repository still chooses when and how to adopt the change.
Falsifiability deadlines	Every brain artefact carries a "Would Revise If" condition. Stale artefacts become visible at quarterly audit time rather than rotting silently.

For practitioners

If you want to run an instance of the architecture today, the fastest path is to install the plugin constellation: follow the Alex ACT Core installation guide, then add optional capabilities from the Plugin Mall as your work requires them. The constellation is opinionated; Core names the opinions explicitly so you can decide which to keep and which to override for your context. The earlier Alex_ACT_Edition fork-and-bootstrap route still exists, but it is lineage rather than the current entry point.

Mall catalog snapshots are refreshed quarterly; consult the live repository for current state. Corrections to this page welcome via errata.