Design Round 7 · Deliverable 4 · The coding-agent seam · renders canon 2026-07-11 · July 11, 2026

# The seam — packages out, artifacts back

Studio composes a self-describing package — context, ask, constraints, return address — Claude Code or Codex works it locally, and the result returns and unpacks into the Project as recorded artifacts with provenance. Composition (4a), the in-flight state (4b), return and unpacking (4c), failure and retry (4d), and the moment of acceptance — argued for gold (4e).

4a

## Composing the package — said in Chat, shown as a card

Elias tells his ally what needs doing; the ally assembles the package and reads it back whole before anything leaves — the consent-precedes-collection pattern, applied to work. The card is the package: four parts, nothing hidden.

package #7 · Lightbrush integration
composed · not yet out
Wire RenderDeck's queue into the adapter
Context — the adapter repo state (Records 14–19) · RenderDeck's API notes as Moe uploaded them · the two failing test cases from Tuesday. Everything cited; nothing the Project doesn't already hold.
Ask — "make the adapter submit renders to RenderDeck's queue and report completion back as events" — Elias's sentence, verbatim.
Constraints — touch only the adapter workspace · no new dependencies · RenderDeck credentials stay server-side; the agent gets a test stub, never the keys.
Return address — this Project, this package's thread, Elias to be told on arrival. The package knows its way home.
send to Claude Code · Elias's machine change something
sending is a recorded command with a receipt — not a signature; the package leaves under Elias's name but binds no one
Self-describing means the package needs nothing it doesn't carry: an agent that has never seen the Kidunaverse can open it, do the work, and know where to send the result.

Claude Code or Codex is a choice stated on the card, not a setting: the send chip names the agent and the machine. The protocol is the same package either way — modeled on the dispatch protocol Kinship runs between its own sessions.

4b

## In flight — what the Field shows while an agent works elsewhere

package #7 · with Claude Code
on Elias's machine · 24 min
beyond the room's edge:
Elias's machine — a real place,
not rendered, only pointed at
The Ceremony Machine · Lightbrush integration
Package #7 is out — last word from the agent: "queue submission working; writing the event reporter."
the package sits at the room's edge, gold-rimmed, breathing slowly — light announcing state, never pulsing for attention · elapsed time is stated, never a progress bar

The Field tells the truth about elsewhere: the work isn't in the room, so it doesn't render in the room — the package waits at the edge, facing the machine it went to. Its slow breathing is the only motion (period 3.2s, MOTION-ADDENDUM-R7).

Progress is sentences, not percent. The agent's own status lines, relayed verbatim through the band when they change. If the agent goes quiet, the card says how long it's been quiet — a fact, not an alarm.

Work continues around it. Nothing locks; both members keep working. The package is a thing in the room's life, not a spinner over it.

4c

## Return — the package unpacks into recorded artifacts

package #7 · returned · 41 min out
unpacked · awaiting acceptance
Claude Code returned: 6 changed files, 2 new test suites, one note. Everything landed as draft Records in this Project, each cited to package #7 and to the agent that made it. Nothing executed; nothing entered the record proper.
adapter/queue.ts · changed via Claude Code · pkg #7
adapter/events.ts · new via Claude Code · pkg #7
tests/queue.spec.ts · 41 passing via Claude Code · pkg #7
the agent's note: "RenderDeck's queue re-orders on priority — I preserved submission order with a sequence key; flag if that's wrong."
walk the diff in the Field send it back with notes
returned work is draft until accepted — visible to the Project's members, marked "via Claude Code · pkg #7", entering nothing downstream

Provenance is the artifact's surname: every Record born from a package carries "via [agent] · pkg #N" forever — in the card, in the Field's object labels, in anything that later cites it. Machine work is never laundered into member work.

Both directions, same grammar: a package can also arrive from the local agent — Claude Code proposing work it noticed while inside a granted workspace. It lands exactly like a return: draft, cited, awaiting a member's word.

4d

## Failure — told plainly, retried by hand

chat · Elias's ally
Package #7 came back unfinished. The agent hit the constraint wall: the event reporter needs a dependency, and the package forbade new ones. It stopped there and said so — nothing was forced.
package #7 · returned unfinished · constraint met honestly
Partial work held as drafts. Choose: loosen the constraint (allow the dependency, named) and re-send · re-scope the ask · or take the partial work as is.
allow ws-events@4 · re-send re-scope take partial
re-sending composes package #8 citing #7 — the lineage is part of the provenance; nothing retries silently
a failed package is not an error state — it's a returned package whose contents are a reason

Three failures, one grammar: constraint met (shown) · agent unreachable (the in-flight card states the silence and offers recall) · return rejected by the server (contents outside the package's own declared scope — the one case the server refuses, stated as which constraint the return violated). All three are sentences and choices, never red banners.

Retry is always a new package citing the old one. History accumulates; nothing is overwritten; the Project's package thread reads like correspondence, because it is.

4e

## Acceptance — argued for gold

PROPOSED · the fourth signed act — flagged, OQ-2

The argument: accepting returned work is the moment machine output becomes the organization's record under a member's name. That is precisely what a signature is for — not the work (the agent did that), but the vouching. R7 builds acceptance as press-and-hold with the gold ceremony, and flags it: it would be the fourth signed act at launch.

signed act · acceptance
Accept package #7's work into the Lightbrush integration
You are signing that this work — 6 files, 2 test suites, made by Claude Code under your package — enters The Ceremony Machine's record vouched for by you. The provenance stays the agent's; the acceptance is yours; both are permanent.
press and hold to accept the hold is the signature · release before the ring closes and nothing happens
will record: accept(package: 7, records: [r24–r31], by: elias) · receipt follows
gold appears exactly here and nowhere else in the seam — composition and return are recorded acts, acceptance is a signed one
The case for gold: everywhere else in the system, gold marks a person putting their name where consequence lives. Machine work entering an organization's record is the highest-volume consequence Studio will ever produce. If that isn't signed, provenance decays into decoration.

The case against (stated honestly, OQ-2): launch canon holds gold to three acts, and acceptance will happen dozens of times a day — ceremony repeated hourly risks devaluing the ring. The alternative: acceptance as a recorded act with light, gold reserved for a Project's completion. R7 builds gold and recommends watching the frequency in practice.

Who signs: any member whose grant says "accept" — here Elias for work-in-progress, Moto where the duna's own record is touched. The grant names it; the card states whose name goes on.