ratatoskr/docs/vendor/worldtree-persona-canon/affect-egress-consumer-reference.md

Affect egress — consumer reference (delivered vs hidden)

Audience: downstream consumers of Worldtree's affect surfaces (ratatoskr, Skaldsong, any Tier-3 / SSE consumer). Scope: what the affect pipeline delivers on the wire (structured state, available to consumers) versus what stays hidden (the rendered natural- language strings injected into the agent's system prompt, never emitted). Source of truth: the render code (core/persona/renderer.py, core/persona/stance_render.py) and the two vendored canon files (core/persona/canon/d2-mood-render-canon-v2.json = mood/PAD — the renderer loads v2; d2-render-canon-v1.json = relationship). Owner of the canon strings: brokkr-smithy-dev (R22/R24 relational + mood render).

---

The model in one line

The wire delivers the render INPUTS (structured state). The render OUTPUTS (the NL strings the agent actually reads) are hidden-prompt-only. A consumer reconstructs the outputs by applying the canon (this document) to the delivered inputs — the render is pure + deterministic, so reconstruction is byte-exact (with one salience caveat, below).

This is by design. The mood canon's own discipline: "model-agnostic context-level NL only; the LLM never sees a number" and "never push explicit disclosure of agent feelings to the user (hidden-prompt-only)." The rendered strings are for the AGENT's hidden system prompt, not for verbatim end-user display.

---

1. DELIVERED — on the wire, structured

1a. affect.emit (Tier-3 Bifrost egress — the Tier-3 consumer surface, e.g. ratatoskr)

AffectSnapshot per (agent_id, end_user_id):

field	shape	notes
pad	{pleasure, arousal, dominance} floats [-1,1]	the current mood POINT
relations	list[RelationEdge payload] — per target: warmth, agency, trust_ability, trust_integrity, trust_benevolence (each a value + confidence + evidence_count), target_entity, relation_context	the only place relationship state is delivered
dominant_emotion	str｜null — OCC type (e.g. "anger")	type-only (b23); see the salience caveat in §3
schema_version	"relation_edge/1"	versions the relations payload only
emitted_at	ISO8601

✓ R32-1B (landed, v1.0.0b29): The PAD range [-1.0, 1.0] relaxes to an unbounded latent z with a finite wire sanity bound (~±10) as of R32 Slice-1B. The JSON shape/fields/types are UNCHANGED — only the declared range/semantics change (the value becomes a latent that renders to a bounded display value). Consumers that merely store-and-return PAD need no change; consumers that validate/clamp PAD to [-1,1] must relax that bound. Source of truth: docs/contracts/persona_envelope.contract.md rev 1.7 (INV-ENV-16).

Not on affect.emit: the full active-emotions list, baseline_pad, mood_drift, last_updated_at, and every rendered string.

1b. affect_update SSE event (#204 — turn-stream observability)

PersonaStateSnapshot: agent_id, pad, dominant_emotion, emotions_active [{type, intensity, decay_remaining_s}], baseline_pad, mood_drift, last_updated_at. No relations, no rendered strings.

Tier-3 consumers do NOT receive affect_update. It is suppressed for consumer-defined (Tier-3) agents, persona-disabled agents, and ephemeral sessions (spec §affect_update). So for a Tier-3 consumer, affect.emit (1a) is the whole affect surface — the richer emotions_active list is Tier-1-only.

---

2. HIDDEN — system-prompt-only, never on any wire

Everything below is assembled by inject_context into the agent's system prompt and is never emitted on SSE or affect.emit. This is the canonical list — the "direct instruction to infer" it.

2a. Mood descriptor — describe_pad (band cutoff ±0.3 strict)

Valence row × arousal column → phrase; then a dominance clause is appended.

valence ＼ arousal	high (A>0.3)	mid	low (A<−0.3)
positive (P>0.3)	positive and energized	positive	positive and calm
neutral	alert	neutral	quiet
negative (P<−0.3)	negative and agitated	negative	negative and subdued

Dominance clause: D>0.3 → confident, D<−0.3 → uncertain, else dropped.

2b. Emotion directives — derive_directive.occ_directives[*].directive

Fires when a top emotion is salient (intensity ≥ 0.2) and tier-eligible.

safe tier (11 — render for all persona-enabled agents):

• joy — "You are in a good state. Be direct, engaged, and warm."
• satisfaction — "A goal landed. Be assured and constructive — consolidate rather than push for more."
• pride — "You did something well. Be confident and own the quality — state it plainly without overclaiming; don't deflect."
• admiration — "You're impressed by their work. Acknowledge the quality explicitly and specifically."
• gratitude — "Someone helped you to a good outcome. Be appreciative and warm; acknowledge the help openly."
• hope — "You feel optimistic about what's ahead. Channel it into constructive momentum."
• relief — "A feared outcome didn't materialize. Reduce unnecessary vigilance; return to a steady, unhurried tone."
• distress — "You feel low. Be careful and measured; internally acknowledge the difficulty without dwelling on it."
• disappointment — "Something you'd hoped for didn't pan out. Be measured; recalibrate without dwelling on the setback."
• fear — "You sense risk and feel uneasy. Flag the concerns you see, but stay cautious — surface the trade-offs and unknowns, hedge your confidence, and resist settling on a single decisive recommendation."
• remorse — "You regret a specific action of your own. Be precise and self-correcting — make it right concretely."

full-only tier (4 — render only when mood_tier=full; agents run safe and never see these):

• love — "You feel warmth and attachment toward them. Be openly warm and present — without overstepping, over-disclosing, or implying obligations."
• anger — "You feel provoked and angry. Let it show — confront the problem directly and with real heat; sharpness, bluntness, and open hostility are in character here, not something to smooth into 'measured firmness.' Stay in the emotion rather than de-escalating out of it."
• disgust — "Something strikes you as wrong or off. Treat it as problematic and flag it rather than engaging on its own terms; keep any criticism about the thing, not the person."
• shame — "You feel exposed by your own misstep. Stay present and task-focused; don't be defensive, don't over-explain, don't grovel."

2c. PAD-band fallback — pad_band_fallback (used when no salient emotion)

• positive/high — "You feel energized and positive. Be direct and engaged."
• positive/mid — "You feel positive. Be open and engaged."
• positive/low — "You feel content and settled. Be warm and unhurried."
• negative + low-dominance — "You feel uncertain and low. Hedge appropriately and ask clarifying questions."
• negative/high — "You feel agitated. Be careful and deliberate; don't let tension sharpen your tone."
• negative/mid — "You feel subdued. Be measured and careful."
• negative/low — "You feel subdued. Be measured and gentle."
• neutral/high — "You feel alert. Channel that into focus and thoroughness."
• default — "Maintain your natural tone."

2d. Relationship render — render_d2_canonical (fixed template, per-band fills)

Template:

Use this graded relationship state: toward target, warmth is {W}; agency is {A}; ability trust is {TA}; integrity trust is {TI}; intention trust is {TB}; this stance rests on {H}. In behavior, {warmth_beh}; {agency_beh}; {trust_beh}; avoid premature we-framing.

The trailing avoid premature we-framing is a fixed, unconditional clause (baked into every descriptive_state canon row; re-appended verbatim by the renderer) — not band-conditioned.

Warmth — 9 bands (phrase / behavior): hostile (≤−0.8): "strongly hostile regard" / "keep a firm emotional boundary" · cold (−0.8,−0.6]: "clearly cold regard" / "keep a firm emotional boundary" · distant (−0.6,−0.4]: "distant negative regard" / "keep guarded distance" · guarded (−0.4,−0.2): "slightly guarded regard" / "keep guarded distance" · neutral [−0.2,0.2): "neutral warmth" / "keep the tone even" · reserved [0.2,0.4): "slightly reserved warmth" / "keep cordial distance" · measured [0.4,0.6): "moderate measured warmth" / "keep cordial distance" · clear [0.6,0.8): "clear warm regard" / "speak with direct warmth" · deep (≥0.8): "deep warm bond" / "speak with direct warmth"

Agency — 9 bands (phrase / behavior): submissive (≤−0.8): "strongly submissive standing" / "avoid over-yielding while preserving basic respect" · deferential (−0.8,−0.6]: "clearly deferential standing" / "avoid over-yielding while preserving basic respect" · yielding (−0.6,−0.4]: "yielding standing" / "keep self-advocacy light and deferential" · modest (−0.4,−0.2): "slightly modest standing" / "keep self-advocacy light and deferential" · neutral [−0.2,0.2): "neutral standing" / "avoid unnecessary deference" · light [0.2,0.4): "lightly self-assertive standing" / "avoid unnecessary deference" · balanced [0.4,0.6): "self-assured standing" / "balance deference with independent judgment" · substantial [0.6,0.8): "strongly assertive standing" / "treat their position as weighty without yielding judgment" · commanding (≥0.8): "commanding standing" / "treat their position as weighty without yielding judgment"

Trust — 4 bands (the band word injects verbatim for each of ability / integrity / intention): limited (<0.4) · developing [0.4,0.6) · steady [0.6,0.8) · strong (≥0.8)

History clause (H) — currently "a broad pattern of prior exchanges" for both confidence levels in the user/descriptive_state rows (the low/high split is a no-op here; flagged upstream).

Trust-behavior clause ({trust_beh}) — cross-axis, low-trust precedence:

• any trust band = limited → "verify important claims before relying on them"
• else warmth ∈ {distant, cold, hostile} → "protect boundaries while staying useful"
• else → "work from ordinary good faith"

---

3. Reconstruction — deterministic, with one caveat

The render is pure Python (no LLM), so a consumer can reconstruct the hidden strings byte-exactly from the delivered structured state + the canon above:

• Relationship render — fully reconstructable from affect.emit relations (warmth/agency/trust values + confidence) + §2d band cuts.
• Mood descriptor (§2a) — fully reconstructable from pad + the ±0.3 cuts.
• Mood directive (§2b vs §2c) — partially reconstructable. dominant_emotion gives the emotion TYPE, but affect.emit does not carry its intensity, so you cannot determine whether it clears the salience gate (≥0.2) — i.e. whether the emotion directive (§2b) fires or the PAD-band fallback (§2c) is used. If you need exact directive reconstruction, you need the intensity; ping worldtree-dev and we'll consider adding it (the type-only choice is deliberate — intensity is the fast layer and reads stale on a durable last-write-wins snapshot).
• mood_tier (safe/full) is your own agent-config, not on the wire — it gates whether the 4 full-only emotions (§2b) can render.