Bounded self-direction
Bounded self-direction is BMO’s framing for unattended work under operator rails: goal contracts say what recipe may run; composite gates say when; logs and the Journal say what happened.
Use this guide as the field orientation for bounded delivery in BMO. It explains the operator-facing concepts and points to the repository topics for implementation detail, code paths, and known gaps.
Route fit: use this page as the operator orientation for bounded unattended work — goal contracts, idle gates, and Journal evidence are the operational path. Go to Configuration or the governance references when you need exact policy or option details.
What to use when
Section titled “What to use when”| Question | Where to look |
|---|---|
| What is a goal contract and where is it enforced? | Goal contracts (topic) |
| Idle-gated compaction (reference path) | Compaction (this site) and Compaction swarm (topic) |
Operator surfaces
Section titled “Operator surfaces”- Scheduler / contracts — Contract id and version on jobs; preflight denies unknown or paused contracts. See the goal-contracts topic.
- Journal — Read-only synthesis over runs and scheduler history (including contract provenance). The Journal does not feed the agent prompt with journal-derived goals.
Where to go deeper
Section titled “Where to go deeper”- Configuration matrices — Configuration and generated reference TOML.
- Compaction mechanics — Full quorum, PR, and spec links stay in the linked implementation topic.