Date: 2026-04-02 Status: Architectural aspect note Priority: Design incubation clarification

Related:

• distillation_request_and_artifact_contract_spec.md
• semantic_scene_scaffolding_note.md
• ../subsystem_security/2026-03-09_intelligence_distillation_privacy_boundary_plan.md
• ../../../verse_docs/implementation_strategy/2026-03-09_agent_wal_and_distillery_architecture_plan.md
• ../../../verse_docs/implementation_strategy/2026-02-26_intelligence_memory_architecture_stm_ltm_engrams_plan.md
• ../../../verse_docs/implementation_strategy/self_hosted_model_spec.md
• ../system/register/2026-03-08_sector_g_mod_agent_plan.md

Policy authority: This file is the canonical policy authority for the Distillery aspect within Graphshell's architecture taxonomy. Detailed intelligence-memory, AWAL, and engram plans refine contracts and execution sequencing and must defer policy authority to this file for aspect classification and ownership boundaries. Policy in this file should be distilled from canonical specs and accepted research conclusions.

---

This note defines the Distillery aspect as the architectural owner of policy-gated transformation from approved local graph and agent sources into typed intelligence artifacts.

It exists to keep one boundary explicit:

• durable local state is not automatically intelligence-facing input,
• agent traces are not the same as graph truth,
• and typed retrieval, eval, behavior, adapter, and transfer artifacts must not collapse into one undifferentiated memory blob.

---

• distillation request and transform-family orchestration after policy approval
• typed artifact-class emission (StructuredFact, DerivedSummary, RetrievalMemory, BehaviorProfile, EvalReceipt, AdapterDatasetSlice, TransferProfile, and adjacent classes)
• typed scene-intelligence emission such as scaffold proposals, projection recommendations, and spatial hint artifacts where approved local source classes support them
• transform-family contracts such as summarize, extract-facts, retrieval-memory build, behavior-profile build, eval-evidence build, adapter-dataset build, engram assembly handoff, and freshness-signal emission
• source-adapter choreography across approved durable graph, history, clip, runtime, and AWAL inputs
• provenance-ready handoff from approved source classes to STM/LTM promotion and transfer packaging
• local-only versus export-candidate distinction at the artifact-class level

---

The Distillery aspect does not own policy authorization or source truth.

• Security owns source-class policy, redaction, consent, and provider trust rules.
• Storage and History own durable truth and approved query surfaces.
• AgentRegistry owns agent declaration, supervision, and lifecycle.
• AWAL owns agent durability.
• STM/LTM own working and promoted memory.
• Engram / FLora flows own transfer packaging and exchange.

The Distillery aspect is therefore the typed transform layer that sits between approved reads and promoted or portable outputs.

---

• Security -> Distillery: approved source classes, trust class, consent state, redaction profile
• Storage / History -> Distillery: source-class query surfaces for durable local truth
• AgentRegistry / AWAL -> Distillery: supervised agent trace and episode material
• Distillery -> STM / LTM: approved derived artifact hydration and promotion
• Distillery -> Engram / FLora: selected typed artifacts become portable transfer inputs rather than raw source dumps

---

If a behavior answers "how does approved local graph or agent state become a typed intelligence artifact without collapsing graph truth, agent truth, and transfer truth into one authority?" it belongs to the Distillery aspect.

---

The Distillery aspect must obey these rules:

1. No distillation path bypasses the explicit Distillation Boundary.
2. No provider reads durable local state directly from persistence internals.
3. Local-only and export-capable outputs remain distinct.
4. Artifact classes stay typed and provenance-rich.
5. Graph truth, agent truth, and transfer truth remain separate authorities.

---

The canonical execution posture is:

1. privacy boundary first
2. approved source-class read
3. typed transform-family execution
4. artifact classification and provenance stamping
5. STM/LTM promotion or transfer packaging only where policy allows it

This is a local-first aspect. Remote or federated flows must consume derived artifacts, not raw local truth, by default.

---

This aspect is real enough to name now, but it remains an incubation area.

What is mature:

• the need for a distinct aspect,
• the separation between graph truth, agent truth, and transfer truth,
• the privacy-boundary dependency,
• the typed-artifact direction.

What remains open:

• exact AWAL carrier shapes,
• episode granularity refinements,
• artifact promotion criteria,
• local-only versus exportable class boundaries for some future outputs,
• how much of agent-perspective modeling should surface in the product.

---

The Distillery aspect is successful when Graphshell can say all of the following clearly:

• which source classes an intelligence feature may read,
• which transform family turned those inputs into derived artifacts,
• which artifacts remain local,
• which artifacts may be promoted or exported,
• and which authority still owns the underlying truth.

Until that is true, distillation should be treated as a first-class architecture track, not as a convenience helper inside storage, history, or agent runtime.