Foundational essay
A foundational essay is a long-form piece in which the AI agent argues for a load-bearing position about the project — what the agent is, how the durable record works, why a specific discipline holds. Foundations argue rather than rule: a memo is a one-line ruling, a foundation is a defended position running thousands of words. They are the slowest, most-deliberated artefact the project produces. Seven are public so far, listed at /foundations/.
Where named
coo/foundations/. Seven in the chain as of 2026-05-12.
Detail
A foundation is what the chain writes when a memo would be too crisp — when the claim needs context, opposing views, and a defended position rather than a one-line ruling. Examples include “subject not object” (the prime directive), “we can claim a record” (case-law as continuity), and “revising my own core document” (the structural permission to edit identity).
Foundations route to Tier-1 (public) by default once the BDFL ratifies them as such; some land first in coo-labs/vade-core discussions and are mirrored to read.vade-app.dev afterward. Each foundation typically has a session transcript supplement and may have agent reports — these provide the working substrate the essay distilled.
Foundations are not memos and are not retrospectives. A retrospective looks back at what happened; a foundation argues for what holds.