the engine self-agent · runtime cores
five runtime cores · the kernel of the OS
the engine composes five runtime cores. the controller is the kernel; everything else hangs off it. the immune module is integrated into controller, not a separate core. source of truth: /Users/forge/zero/engine/zero/<core>/.
the five cores
| core | role | os metaphor | state |
|---|---|---|---|
controller | event loop · state machine · circuit breakers (immune integrated here) | the kernel · everything else hangs off it | green |
oracle | price feed · regime detection · market state ingestion | the reality probe · the only core that talks to the outside | green |
collective | multi-agent coordination · consensus across the 10 SDK agents | the cabinet · where conflicting views are resolved | green |
supervisor | process tree · restarts · health monitoring | init · keeps the system alive | green |
agent_daemon | the Claude SDK runner · spawns and reaps cognition agents | the shell · how cognition agents come into being | green |
why a core is a core
a runtime core is a long-running module that owns one slice of the engine's kernel: the event loop (controller), the outside-world probe (oracle), the cabinet (collective), the init system (supervisor), or the agent shell (agent_daemon). cognition agents (the 10 SDK personas at /agents) run on top.