/session-channels

name: session-channels
description: Use when a section of the birth block or a line beside a prompt arrives and its meaning is not held -- `## User memory`, `## Due`, `## Environment`, `## Workspaces I manage`, `## Resume point`, `~ user memory changed:`, `~ project memory changed:`, `🔔 N notifications due`, a `closed <state>, conclusion:` line, a task result line, a denial, a ceiling notice, an install notice -- or after a compaction, to re-read what the new birth carries. A lookup for the orchestrator, not a procedure.

Session channels

The birth block and the per-prompt lines carry values, never explanations; this document is the explanation. Each row names the renderer that writes the line, so the row can be checked against it when a line looks different. The rows that change the orchestrator's behaviour on sight are repeated in its identity, *What changes my behaviour on sight*; the rest lives here only.

What I am born with

A birth block arrives at session start -- on Claude Code before the first turn, on OpenCode attached to the session's first user message -- and again after a compaction, a resume or a fork (`hooks/modules/session/session_manifest.py::build_session_context`). These sections reach the orchestrator and no specialist.

| Section | What it means | Renderer | |---|---|---| | `## User memory` | The user's live facts and preferences, grouped by `kind=`: each line a title and `ref=memory:user/<slug>`, and `gaia memory show <slug>` opens its why. A preference's title is the rule itself; `surface=conversation` marks the ones that set the form of every answer, listed first and never cut; `until=` says how long it holds. | `hooks/modules/context/user_sections.py::USER_HEADER` | | `## Due` | Reminders and routines due now, reports excluded: `overdue=N`, then one line each with its title, `due=` or `repeat=`/`missed=`, `late=`, `ref=` and `id=`. Each is delivered to the user; `Skill('reminders')` closes it. | `hooks/modules/session/session_manifest.py::build_due_section`, `::due_item_line`; the rule is `gaia/store/reader.py::due_now` | | `## Environment` | Where the session stands: machine and `host=`, `gaia=` version and channel, `cli=`, `cwd=` (home-relative), `session=`, `zone=`, `data=`/`db=` -- none of which changes mid-session. `tools=` lists the user's tool rows, then Gaia's detected catalog, then executables under `$HOME` minus package console scripts: what a specialist can count on running here, current as of session start. Each `tool=<binary>` line is a program built for the user, present while its binary is on PATH: its title says how to use it, `replaces=<cli>` means the hooks judge it as that CLI, and `ref=` opens its row. Nothing in it is the orchestrator's to invoke; its lane admits the `gaia` binary alone. | `hooks/modules/session/session_manifest.py::build_environment_section`, `hooks/modules/context/user_sections.py::tool_lines` | | `## Workspaces I manage` | Every workspace, its groups and their projects, busiest first. `name(N)` is N live pendings; a name with no count has nothing pending, not nothing tracked. `+N` is N more projects the index did not list -- look them up, never assume them absent. A name the index does not place goes to `gaia map <word>`; a project's card is `gaia context project <name>`. | `hooks/modules/session/session_manifest.py::build_projects_section` | | `## Resume point` | Only after a compaction, a resume or a fork, never at startup or clear: this session's ledger, written from the database. `session=` and `compactions=`, then `in_flight:` contracts not COMPLETE, each with its `state=` and `ref=contract:`; `pending:` signatures waiting or approved and unused, each with its id and `state=`; `written:` memory rows, each with `ref=memory:`; `changed:` what other sessions changed in user and project memory since this session was born, each with its place, op, `kind=`, title and `ref=`; `branches:` worktrees this session's agents opened, each with its commit; `(+N)` is N more. `note:` is the orchestrator's own hand note (`gaia session resume-point set`), shown only when this session wrote it. | `hooks/modules/session/session_manifest.py::build_resume_section`, `gaia/session_ledger.py::render_resume_point` |

Live counts never reach the birth: `gaia plan list --status active`, `gaia contract proposals list`, `gaia approvals list`.

What reaches me during a session

| Channel | What it is, and what to do | Renderer | |---|---|---| | `~ Your conversation preferences:` | The titles of the user's preferences marked `surface=conversation`, beside every prompt: they set the form of the answer before the host's output style and norm 7's shape. At most four such preferences exist, and their titles always arrive in full, within 660 characters; past four rows the line adds how many more there are, with their coordinates. `Load Skill('human-register')` is appended until that skill is loaded after the last compaction. | `hooks/modules/session/session_lifecycle.py::preferences_line`, `hooks/modules/context/user_sections.py::preferences_line` | | `~ user memory changed:` | Another session added, updated or retired a row of the user's own memory: one line each, op, `kind=`, quoted title, `ref=memory:user/<slug>`. Read every one; it may change behaviour from now on. | `gaia/signals.py::render_line`, delivered by `hooks/modules/session/session_lifecycle.py::signals_line` | | `~ project memory changed:` | Another session changed a project's memory: lines grouped under the place `## Workspaces I manage` names (`ws/project`, `ws/group`, `ws`), three per place, then `ws/project ×N`. A place being worked on is placed as a name is placed and opened before deciding; the rest is awareness, connected when that project is named. `gaia signals` lists them all. | same | | `🔔 N notifications due` | What `## Due` shows, by the same rule: up to three due, `🔔 N notifications due:` followed by their `## Due` item lines; more than three, the count wi