CORTEX-Persist Dogfooding Agent Architecture

Reality Level: C5-REAL
Version: 0.1.0
Design System: Industrial Noir 2026

01. Conceptual Foundation

The DogfoodingAgent is a recursive, self-reflective agentic loop. Instead of auditing external systems, it applies CORTEX-Persist telemetry rules to the parent SDK codebase and ledger states.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     DogfoodingAgent                      │
└────────────┬───────────────────────────────┬─────────────┘
             │                               │
             ▼                               ▼
    [runDiagnostic()]               [injectFriction()]
             │                               │
             ▼                               ▼
     CortexLedger.verify()            CortexEngine.processConcept()
             │                               │
             ▼                               ▼
      Ledger Write (AOF)               Entropy Calculation

02. Core Capabilities

A. Recursive Diagnostics (`runDiagnostic`)

The agent scans designated source code nodes and executes cryptographic chain validation.

Calls ledger.verify() to trace hash linkages (prev_hash) and Ed25519 signatures.
Computes a normalized healthScore (penalized heavily if chain breaches or signature failures are detected).
Records the diagnostic output as a signed entry directly back into the ledger using cortexWrap, creating an immutable audit trail of the agent’s own verification cycles.

B. Cognitive Friction Injection (`injectFriction`)

To test self-alignment, the agent pushes high-dimensional semantic vectors representing orthodox, radical, and nihilist stances onto the DOGFOODING concept node:

Orthodox Stance: [1, 0, 0.5, 0, -0.2]
Radical Stance: [-1, 0, -0.5, 0.9, 0.8]
Nihilist Stance: [0, 0, -1, -1, 1]

The underlying CortexEngine recalculates Shannon entropy to identify active semantic attractors.

03. CLI Deployment

To run a self-audit diagnostic in production:

npm run dogfood

This invokes the CLI wrapper script (scripts/cortex_dogfooding.js), outputting diagnostic state and recalculating semantic friction vectors in real-time.

dogfooding architecture