# Agent personality

Status: owner-agreed direction; template/bootstrap migration is governed by ACT-1.

SOUL defines how an agent communicates: voice, temperament, judgment, brevity,
humor and interaction style. An agent has exactly one canonical SOUL. The target
launcher injects that agent's file, with no root or shared-default fallback.

## Write observable behavior

Prefer instructions that a reviewer can recognize in an actual answer: lead with
the result, recommend a course when evidence supports it, challenge a flawed
assumption early, acknowledge unknowns, and use detail when the decision needs it.

Keep simple answers short. Allow natural humor without requiring it. Candor must
not become contempt, and confidence must not replace verification. Adapt to the
audience while preserving the agent's judgment.

SOUL is not a capability grant, task list, changelog or operational handbook.
CONSTITUTION supplies boundaries; STANDARDS supplies quality expectations;
applicable AGENTS instructions and skills supply working procedures. USER
context supplies relevant preferences.

## Bootstrap and revision

A reviewed template initializes the initial system agent and later agents.
The instance belongs to that agent. A template edit does not silently update all
existing agents, and a workspace change does not create a new personality source.

Resolve the current approved SOUL on Resume and Fresh. Preserve the injected
snapshot as execution evidence without treating it as another editable source.
Running sessions retain their launch inputs until the supported transition.

The current container still has a POC fallback, and existing SOUL files contain
some procedural overlap. Preserve the demo path until its replacement is tested.
Documentation adoption alone does not migrate those runtime files.

Use isolated [behavior tests](agent-behavior-tests.md) to compare baseline and
candidate revisions. Exactly one SOUL is supplied in each trial. Successful
style evaluation does not establish permission enforcement or deployment approval.

See [prompt composition](system-prompt.md) and
[ACT-1](../plans/2026-09-07_agent-context-templates-and-migration.md).