Meditation Mode

Problem

On a normal tick the agent's attention is split between the external surface (tools, user channels) and internal cognition, and the dispatcher offers no way to turn the external surface fully off. Inner work is always one tool call away from being disturbed by an unrelated check or one consolidation cycle away from being delayed. There is no bounded, auditable runtime mode in which the agent can do uninterrupted inner-dialogue work while still being safe to interrupt from outside in an emergency.

Solution

A mode toggle persisted to a state file. While meditation_mode is on: the dispatcher swaps the tool palette to a fixed inner-only allowlist (inner-dialogue, recall, register-affect, optional inner-only artefact generators); the tick scheduler ignores normal cadence and runs at fast cadence (for example ten seconds); public-write tools return a refusal; outputs go to `journal/inner-dialogue/<date>/`; a wall-clock budget (default fifteen minutes) auto-exits; an explicit `exit_meditation` call is on the inner allowlist; an operator can delete the mode-state file to force exit.

When to use

• The agent runs continuously and benefits from a substrate where external I/O is paused.
• Inner-dialogue work degrades when interrupted by external action.
• A bounded wall-clock window plus operator force-exit is feasible.