# telos-load

Load TELOS — the intention substrate — into a session so every decision
can be traced back to a goal, and every goal to a problem.

**Use when:** starting any session on koala (Claude Code, Crush,
Antigravity), or whenever a session needs to know what we are optimizing
toward. If you find yourself making architectural decisions without knowing
the active goals, load TELOS first.

**Do not skip:** a session without TELOS context is flying blind. It may
produce technically correct output that is strategically wrong.

## What TELOS is

TELOS is a wing in brain (wiki/telos/decisions/) containing 9 files:
PROBLEMS, MISSION, GOALS, CHALLENGES, PROJECTS, STRATEGIES, BELIEFS,
WRONG, STATUS. Together they answer: what are we working against, what
are we trying to build, and how do we approach the work?

Full aggregate: wiki/telos/decisions/principal-telos.md

## Loading TELOS by harness

### Claude Code (per-project CLAUDE.md)

Add to the project CLAUDE.md or ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md:

  ## Intention context (TELOS)
  At session start, call brain_context with wing=telos and limit=8.
  Fallback if brain MCP unavailable:
  wiki/telos/decisions/principal-telos.md in the brain repo.

The global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md was wired on koala on 2026-06-16.

### Crush

Location on koala: ~/.config/crush/CRUSH.md (auto-loaded via
global_context_paths). Add:

  ## Intention context (TELOS)
  At session start: query brain MCP with wing=telos, limit=8.
  If brain MCP unavailable: read wiki/telos/decisions/principal-telos.md

### Antigravity

Add @brain_context wing=telos directive at top of system instructions.

### Fallback — no brain MCP

  cat ~/dev/AI/brain/wiki/telos/decisions/principal-telos.md

Or @-import in CLAUDE.md:
  @~/dev/AI/brain/wiki/telos/decisions/principal-telos.md

## Verification

  brain_query wing=telos limit=3
  → Expected: PROBLEMS, MISSION, GOALS returned

  brain_answer "what am I currently optimizing toward?"
  → Expected: non-empty, telos-sourced
  → If empty: use brain_query wing=telos (known fallback, brain#11 fixed)

## When TELOS is stale

Update STATUS.md via:
  brain_write wing=telos hall=decisions filename=STATUS

## Relationship to CAD

TELOS is the intention layer in the CAD pipeline. Every Gitea issue
created in a CAD session should trace to a TELOS GOAL. Every GOAL
traces to a PROBLEM.

Traceability chain: PROBLEM → GOAL → SPEC → TICKET → IMPL → TEST