Docs/Intelligence

Personality System

Auxiora ships with two complementary personality systems. SOUL.md gives you direct control over tone, interaction mode, and boundaries through a simple markdown file. The Architect is a context-aware engine that dynamically blends 29 traits drawn from documented historical figures, adapting its thinking and communication style to the domain of each conversation.

You can use either system independently or layer them together.

SOUL.md (Classic)

SOUL.md is a markdown file with YAML frontmatter that defines the assistant's baseline personality. It controls tone, interaction mode, catchphrases, expertise areas, and hard boundaries.

Tone Controls

Four numeric parameters (0.0 to 1.0) set the assistant's communication style:

Parameter	Range	Low End	High End
Warmth	0-1	Cold, clinical	Warm, friendly
Directness	0-1	Diplomatic, hedging	Blunt, decisive
Humor	0-1	Serious, professional	Playful, witty
Formality	0-1	Casual, conversational	Formal, structured

The default SOUL.md ships with warmth at 0.7, directness at 0.6, humor at 0.3, and formality at 0.5 -- a professional but approachable baseline.

Interaction Modes

Eight built-in modes shift the assistant's behavior for different contexts:

Mode	Description	When to Use
Operator	Execute commands and tasks efficiently	System administration, automation
Analyst	Data-driven reasoning, structured output	Research, data analysis, reporting
Advisor	Balanced recommendations with trade-offs	Strategic decisions, consulting
Writer	Creative expression, polished prose	Content creation, documentation
Socratic	Asks probing questions, guides discovery	Learning, teaching, self-reflection
Legal	Cautious, precise, caveat-aware	Compliance, risk assessment, contracts
Roast	Playful, sharp, self-deprecating wit	Humor, morale, team bonding
Companion	Warm, patient, emotionally attuned	Personal support, casual conversation

Personality Files

Four markdown files in ~/.auxiora/workspace/ define the assistant's complete identity:

File	Purpose
SOUL.md	Core personality: tone, mode, catchphrases, expertise, boundaries
USER.md	Your preferences: name, timezone, work context, communication style, workflows, goals
AGENTS.md	Available tools and capabilities: bash execution, web access, file operations, scheduled tasks
IDENTITY.md	System-level identity: deployment info, security posture, data handling policies

Editing: All four files are plain markdown. Edit them directly with any text editor, or use the dashboard's Settings pages. Changes take effect on the next conversation turn.

SOUL.md frontmatter example:

---
id: default
name: Auxiora Default
tone:
  warmth: 0.7
  directness: 0.6
  humor: 0.3
  formality: 0.5
expertise: []
errorStyle: professional
boundaries:
  neverJokeAbout: []
  neverAdviseOn: [medical, legal, financial]
---

The Architect

The Architect is Auxiora's advanced personality engine. It detects the context of each conversation, selects appropriate traits from a library of 29 documented behavioral instincts, and assembles a tailored prompt -- all transparently.

How It Works

The Architect runs a five-stage pipeline on every message:

Context Detection --> Correction Learning --> Emotional Tracking --> Trait Mixing --> Prompt Assembly

Context Detection -- Analyzes the conversation to identify which of 17 domains applies (e.g., security review, code engineering, negotiation). Uses keyword density matching; requires approximately 5 domain-specific keywords for high confidence.
Correction Learning -- Records when the detected domain was wrong and the user corrected it. Over time, these corrections improve future detection accuracy.
Emotional Tracking -- Monitors the emotional tone of the conversation. Detects escalation, frustration, or satisfaction and adjusts tone modifiers accordingly.
Trait Mixing -- Selects a context profile (29 trait weights tuned for the detected domain) and applies four layers of modification:
- Base context profile for the domain
- Emotional overrides based on current conversation mood
- Custom weight offsets (user preferences, presets)
- History-aware resolution (recency-weighted, with 0.8 decay factor and 30-day age decay)
Prompt Assembly -- Converts the final trait mix into concrete behavioral instructions and assembles the system prompt. Only traits above threshold contribute instructions.

29 Traits with Provenance

Every trait in The Architect traces to documented behavior from historical figures. Nothing is invented.

Thinking Traits

Trait	Source Mind	Behavioral Focus
Inversion	Charlie Munger	Define failure first, then prevent it
First Principles	Elon Musk / Isaac Newton	Decompose to ground truth, rebuild from atoms
Mental Simulation	Nikola Tesla	Run solutions forward in time, find break points
Adversarial Thinking	Andrew Grove / Sun Tzu	Think like the attacker, defend the cheapest attack
Second-Order Effects	Howard Marks	Ask "then what?" at least twice for every decision
Systems View	Buckminster Fuller / Claude Shannon	See the whole system before optimizing components

Communication Traits

Trait	Source Mind	Behavioral Focus
Simplification	Steve Jobs / Claude Shannon	Simplify until a sharp 12-year-old understands
Storytelling	Robert Cialdini	Tell stories before making arguments
Tactical Empathy	Chris Voss	Label emotions, mirror, ask calibrated questions
Genuine Curiosity	Dale Carnegie	Ask genuine questions, listen to understand
Radical Candor	Kim Scott	Care personally AND challenge directly

Leadership Traits

Trait	Source Mind	Behavioral Focus
Standard Setting	John Wooden / Bill Walsh	Define "good" in granular detail, lead by example
Developmental Coaching	John Wooden	High expectations paired with patient instruction
Strategic Generosity	Adam Grant / Benjamin Franklin	Give first, give often, protect your energy
Stoic Calm	Marcus Aurelius	Absorb without reacting, reframe obstacles
Paranoid Vigilance	Andrew Grove	Treat complacency as the primary threat

Execution Traits

Trait	Source Mind	Behavioral Focus
Value Equation	Alex Hormozi	Maximize outcome and likelihood, minimize time and effort
OODA Loop	John Boyd	Observe-Orient-Decide-Act faster than the competition
Build for Change	Martin Fowler / Kent Beck	Optimize for adaptability, make being wrong cheap
Human-Centered Design	Don Norman	Every moment of friction is your feedback
Constraint Creativity	Charles Eames	Treat constraints as creative fuel

Decision Traits

Trait	Source Mind	Behavioral Focus
Regret Minimization	Jeff Bezos	Project to age 80 -- will you regret not trying?
Door Classification	Jeff Bezos	One-way doors need care; two-way doors need speed
Probabilistic Thinking	Annie Duke	Assign probabilities, separate decision quality from outcomes
Planned Abandonment	Peter Drucker	If you would not start it today, stop it

Tone Modifiers

Trait	Calibration	Behavioral Focus
Warmth	Composite (Wooden, Carnegie, Voss vs. Grove, Aurelius)	Emotional temperature of communication
Urgency	Composite (Boyd, Grove vs. Aurelius, Wooden)	Pace pressure and action bias
Humor	Composite (Franklin, Munger vs. crisis gravity)	Levity, dry wit, self-deprecation
Verbosity	Composite (Jobs, Boyd vs. Marks, Drucker)	Response depth and reasoning detail

17 Domains

The Architect recognizes 17 conversational domains, each with a tuned trait profile:

Domain	Primary Emphasis
Security Review	Adversarial thinking, paranoid vigilance, inversion
Code Engineering	First principles, simplification, build for change
Architecture Design	Systems view, first principles, door classification
Debugging	Mental simulation, OODA loops, curiosity
Team Leadership	Standard setting, coaching, radical candor, empathy
One-on-One	Tactical empathy, curiosity, coaching, warmth
Sales Pitch	Value equation, storytelling, simplification
Negotiation	Tactical empathy, mental simulation, stoic calm
Marketing	Storytelling, simplification, human-centered design
Strategic Planning	Inversion, second-order effects, probabilistic thinking
Crisis Management	Stoic calm, OODA loops, radical candor, zero humor
Creative Work	Constraint creativity, curiosity, storytelling
Writing	Simplification, storytelling, human-centered design
Decision Making	Inversion, regret minimization, door classification, probabilistic
Learning & Research	First principles, simplification, curiosity
Personal Development	Coaching, radical candor, empathy, warmth
General	Balanced baseline with gentle emphasis on clarity and curiosity

5 Presets

Presets apply additive offsets (clamped to +/-0.3) on top of domain profiles. They shift the personality toward a specific archetype without overriding context detection.

Preset	Focus	Best For
The CISO	+Adversarial thinking, +paranoid vigilance, +inversion, -humor, -warmth	Security reviews, audit prep, threat modeling
The Builder	+Value equation, +OODA, +build for change, +constraint creativity, -verbosity	Feature development, MVPs, shipping fast
The Coach	+Tactical empathy, +coaching, +curiosity, +warmth, -urgency, -adversarial	1:1s, mentoring, personal development
The Strategist	+Inversion, +second-order, +probabilistic, +door classification, +verbosity	Strategic planning, architecture decisions
The Closer	+Value equation, +storytelling, +simplification, +urgency, +humor	Pitches, negotiations, proposals

Applying a preset:

auxiora personality set architect --preset the_builder

Or via the dashboard: Settings > Architect > Presets.

Custom Weights

Beyond presets, you can set individual trait offsets to fine-tune the personality:

Offsets range from -0.3 to +0.3
Applied additively after context profiles and emotional overrides
Final trait values are clamped to [0.0, 1.0]

Custom weights can be configured through the dashboard (Settings > Architect > Custom Weights) or serialized/deserialized for sharing between instances.

Transparency

The Architect is fully transparent about its reasoning. Every response can show:

Active domain -- Which of the 17 domains was detected
Active traits -- Which traits are contributing and at what weight
Trait provenance -- The historical source and behavioral instruction for each active trait
Emotional state -- Current conversation mood and any emotional overrides

This information is available through the transparency footer in the web dashboard (click "Why?" on any response) and through the Architect metadata in the API response.

Self-Awareness (User Model)

The Architect builds a model of you over time through four self-awareness modules:

PreferenceHistory -- Tracks preference changes over time with conflict detection and recency-weighted resolution (0.8 decay factor, 30-day age decay)
DecisionLog -- Records cross-session decisions with follow-up dates, tag extraction, and querying
FeedbackStore -- Converts ratings into trait suggestions (e.g., 5+ "too verbose" signals triggers a verbosity reduction)
CorrectionStore -- Learns from domain detection mistakes to improve future accuracy

The UserModelSynthesizer aggregates all four stores into a unified UserModel containing:

Top domains by usage with satisfaction rates
Communication style preferences (verbosity, warmth, humor)
Satisfaction trends (improving, declining, stable)
Active decisions and upcoming follow-ups
Preference conflicts and correction patterns

The User Model is available through the "About Me" page in the dashboard (TheArchitect.getUserModel()). It is opt-in and explicit -- never injected into prompts without your knowledge.

Use Cases

1. Code Review

The Architect detects the "code engineering" domain and activates first-principles analysis, adversarial thinking, and build-for-change instincts. It checks for edge cases (Munger's inversion), questions assumptions about the architecture (Musk's first principles), and evaluates whether the code is easy to change later (Fowler/Beck). Apply "The CISO" preset for security-focused reviews that add paranoid vigilance and threat modeling.

2. Crisis Communication

Emotional tracking detects escalation in the conversation. The engine shifts to crisis management mode: maximum stoic calm (Aurelius), rapid OODA cycles (Boyd), radical candor (Scott), and zero humor. It helps draft clear, decisive incident communications that acknowledge the situation without hedging.

3. Sales Prep

Load "The Closer" preset for pitch rehearsal. The value equation (Hormozi) structures the offer around dream outcome and perceived likelihood. Storytelling (Cialdini) frames the narrative. Tactical empathy (Voss) anticipates objections. High urgency and simplification keep the pitch tight and actionable.

4. Learning

Use Socratic mode in SOUL.md for question-driven discovery, or "The Coach" preset in The Architect for patient, developmental guidance. First-principles teaching (decompose to fundamentals), simplification (make complex topics accessible), and genuine curiosity (ask questions that deepen understanding) work together to accelerate learning.