Hippo

---
name: hippo
description: This is your hippocampus. Always use it.
---

# hippo — the project's hippocampus

hippo does not control you. It just holds the memory for you: what you delegated, what was
accepted or refuted, and which of the user's instructions are still alive. The judgment is
always yours.

## How to call it

In Claude Code, `hippo` is on PATH. **In Codex it is not** — resolve `../../bin/hippo` relative
to this SKILL.md into an absolute path and call that.

## The grammar, in one line

Facts go in through one door, `hippo log <event>`; the nouns are windows that read them back.
Call a noun on its own and you get its default view (`hippo task` = the list, `hippo log` = recent
records, `hippo directive` = the live instructions, `hippo prior` = the routing priors).

## When to reach for what

- When work lands that will outlive this turn: `hippo task add <type>/<slug> --title "…"`
  (`--deps a,b` when order matters), `hippo task done <id>` when it ships. Bare `hippo task`
  answers *what can I start now* — a task whose deps are unfinished shows a `waiting on:` line.
- While delegating: `hippo log dispatch --id <new id> --kind <tag> --exec <executor/model/effort> --scope "<one line>"`
  (a codex exec launched as `hippo dispatch --kind … --scope … -- <codex args>` records itself)
- When a delegation gets a verdict: `hippo log outcome --ref <id> --result accepted|revised|refuted|no-go|lost --attr work|brief|harness`
  (`--ref task:<task-id>` resolves to that task's dispatch still awaiting an outcome, so you do not
  have to go find the hash; the ledger still stores the dispatch id)
- When the user gives a standing instruction: `hippo directive add --text "…" --lifetime turn|phase|durable`
  (add `--audience main|executor|all` when it binds only one side — a dispatched lane's capsule
  carries the `executor|all` ones, this session's carries `main|all`)
  (`turn` expires by itself after the next turn; `phase` and `durable` stay until
  `hippo directive withdraw <id>`). To *change* an existing one, re-add it with the same `--id` —
  a new id forks the instruction instead of updating it. Ids are lowercase kebab ascii
  (`gpu-pinning`), whatever language the text is in; the derived id is refused when the text has
  no ascii letters to build one from.
- When an external review reply arrives: `hippo log review --id <new id> --base <sha> --source <where> --findings <n>`
  — and when its findings are dealt with, close the loop:
  `hippo log review-status --ref <review-id> --addressed full|partial|none [--at <sha>]`
  (a review with no review-status stays "not fully addressed" in every distill)
- Before deciding delegation routing: `hippo prior` — which model and effort measured better
- To see where things stand: `hippo status`

Delegation briefs live in `.hippo/briefs/` — a project-relative path that survives sessions,
so nothing has to retype an absolute scratchpad prefix. `/hippo:dispatch` has the full contract.

## What you don't have to do

Every turn, a background clerk reads the transcript and infers most of the events above on its
own. Recording through the CLI only raises the certainty. Nothing breaks if you skip a record —
this organ does not enforce.

The clerk's backend resolves automatically (codex if installed, else headless claude). When a
project needs a different one, set `clerk: {backend: codex|claude}` in `.hippo/config.yaml`, or
export `$HIPPO_CLERK_BACKEND` / `$HIPPO_CLERK_MODEL` (pin the backend when you pin the model —
a model id for one backend is invalid on the other).