How to read this tier

We name the methods. We don’t hand over the recipe.

The claim being defended here is the rigor, not any single strategy.

HEURESIS · deep

Search wide, prune hard, never validate the same thing twice.

• Grid enumerates the space cheapest-first from a frozen YAML template; a pruner turns red results into a skip-set that shrinks the next batch’s search space — a combinatorial feedback loop.
• Hypothesis prompts an LLM, then runs the output through a multi-step validator; model version and seed are logged so any candidate can be reconstructed.
• Three-layer de-dup — its own fingerprint KB, the validator’s run history, and a local pre-flight gate — means compute is never spent on a known answer.

HEURESIS · containment & autonomy

A creative engine that cannot cheat.

• Hallucination containment. If the LLM proposes a signal that doesn’t exist, HEURESIS files a structured request to AGORA — it can’t reach into the validator to make itself pass.
• Regime Path B. It can author its own regime classifiers and submit them to KAIROS through the documented protocol — no KAIROS engineering per candidate.
• Autonomous campaigns. An agent mode drives multi-round discovery, digests feedback packets, and routes findings — within the same hard boundaries.
• Attestation loop closes the cycle: receipts are acknowledged, registered and journalled.

EPISTEME · the ladder

Thirteen rungs. Climb in order. First red halts the run.

EPISTEME · signals

A hand-built signal library — no off-the-shelf indicators.

185 primitives across roughly a dozen families, each implemented causality-first rather than pulled from a generic technical-analysis package.

Selection is three-stage: domain pre-filtering, then false-discovery-rate control across many tests, then a fresh-data holdout — so a feature can’t survive on multiple-testing luck.

EPISTEME · statistics & path risk

Significance and survival, separated.

• Multiple-testing control — false-discovery-rate (FDR) control plus permutation p-values, with a ledger so the testing burden is accounted for, not hidden.
• Path risk — bootstrap and permutation Monte Carlo separate edge quality from path luck; trade-overlap scoring measures independence.
• Ruin probability — the real stop threshold is derived from the probability of ruin at the current allocation, not chosen by feel.

EPISTEME · adversarial & Monte Carlo

The strategy is attacked before the market gets to.

Each subtest returns machine-readable diagnostics, so discovery can learn from how a candidate failed.

EPISTEME · generalization & lifecycle

One asset is an anecdote. Several is a claim.

• Generalization gate. A strategy must pass on a floor of ≥3 instruments and clear a pass-rate of at least half the tested universe. (The ratio was deliberately eased from a stricter setting to remove a cliff edge — the 3-instrument floor remains.)
• Lifecycle doesn’t end at deploy. A CUSUM monitor watches live returns for decay; a breach steps a strategy down through reduced allocation toward retirement.
• Re-deployment is gated. An enhanced strategy must clear defined gates before it earns capital back.

EPISTEME · the agent & governance

The LLM is on a very short leash.

• Two nodes, both schema-bound. One turns a natural-language idea into a spec; one explains a red gate. Neither can alter the validator or a verdict.
• Local inference only. Runs against a local model — no external telemetry on proprietary research.
• The dependency graph is CI-enforced. An import-linter contract keeps 42 packages strictly layered; rules map each gate to a function to a test; reproducibility is checked on every commit.
• 156 ADRs record why every non-obvious decision was made.

KAIROS · the optional fork

It only enters the picture if a strategy asks for it.

KAIROS · doctrine

Two verdicts, six principles, and a wall around diagnostics.

• Identification before duration. Top-level green requires both; a classifier can pass identification yet fail on timing — and you’ll know exactly which.
• Diagnostic rungs cannot gate. A test asserts the evaluation family never appears in the verdict path — the wall is enforced in code, not convention.
• Six codified principles — e.g. every label leaks; filtered, not smoothed; stationarity is the null; verdicts are per instrument-and-period — are checked automatically.

KAIROS · models & extensibility

Many model families, one validation contract.

• Model zoo — hidden Markov and hidden semi-Markov models, change-point detectors, K-means, random forests, wavelets, hierarchical Dirichlet-process HMMs, plus an auction-state market-profile taxonomy and ensembles.
• Sibling-authored adapters (“Path B”). A team ships a classifier as a module behind a runtime-checked protocol; KAIROS validates it with no per-candidate engineering. Several HEURESIS-authored classifiers are already blessed.
• HMAC-chained blessed ledger. Every passing classifier’s blessing is recorded in a tamper-evident, append-only ledger.
• Attribution surface slices live strategy performance by regime stream and label — diagnostic only, never a gate.

PRAXIS · the circuit breaker

A two-layer circuit breaker built for fat tails.

PRAXIS · reconciliation & isolation

Reconciled against reality on every cycle.

AGORA · deep

The contract, mechanised.

• Tracked vs ephemeral. Bundles, schemas, ledgers and the journal are permanent; candidates and results are working files. A two-tier garbage collector reclaims the latter and refuses, by configuration, to touch protected paths.
• A 51-event journal vocabulary. Every actor emits typed events under file locks; the log is append-only and committed daily — the cross-platform source of truth.
• A packet broker runs cross-team requests through an explicit state machine (open → acknowledged → replied → closed) with schema-linting in CI.

AGORA · governance & safety

The commons audits itself.

• Derived analytics, regenerable. A queryable database is built from the journal — the markdown, YAML and JSONL remain the source of truth.
• Sibling-admission protocol. A new platform must pass a contract check before it can join the bus; KAIROS was admitted this way.
• Scheduled safety cycles & disaster-recovery drills run machine checks — numeric-claim verification, gate-effectiveness audits, unjustified-bypass detection — on a cadence.
• SHA-256 manifests make every bundle’s integrity verifiable.

The ecosystem, in motion

Not a snapshot — a coordinated, evolving system.

Releases are coordinated across platforms through dated hand-offs and a packet broker, with rapid consumer-feedback cycles — the architecture is exercised continuously, not just at design time.

Plain-language glossary

The acronyms, defined.