agent: builder model: opus effort: medium max_turns: 110 budget_usd: 22 —

Brief: focus rotation in the driver, effort per brief, architect only on demand (owner, 2026-11-01)

Score: process. The owner saw the last hours run with fewer stalls: one area at a time, sequential, who finds a defect fixes it, the next task chosen by a rule and not by an architect run after every batch. This brief puts that into scripts/drive.nika and scripts/agent.nika, so the normal process can start again.

Facts: Where things live, Traps already met, Commands

What the owner decided (2026-11-01, no issue: build and try)

One driver, one area at a time, rotating. A file docs/briefs/focus.txt names the areas in order and the block length; the driver runs a block of up to N builder briefs in the current area, then moves on to the next. Areas: converter (docs/briefs/converter/, new), self-hosting (docs/briefs/), bugs (docs/briefs/bugs/). No second lane in parallel.
Effort per brief. Brief frontmatter effort: low|medium; low for an easy step (one step of a To build list, a known pattern, a bug with a probe and a known place), medium for a hard one (a defect of unknown cause, a new converter pattern, a move with unknown gaps). Missing: medium. The architect’s tasks run at medium.
The architect only on demand, never after every batch: (a) a report cuts the batch (partial|blocked, a Found:, a Needs: architect decision), (b) the current area’s queue is empty and needs briefs (it writes at most 3, for that area only), (c) an OWNER line needs a decision paper (unchanged). A finished block with briefs left in the next area goes straight on.
Figures at the end of a block only, written by the driver, no agent measures: one line per block in docs/briefs/focus-log.md.

To build

scripts/agent.nika: --effort. Read effort from the frontmatter with agent_front (default medium), pass --effort <level> to claude beside --model (the CLI takes --effort low|medium|high|xhigh|max), also in agent_debrief_args. Refuse a value other than low|medium|high with an ESCALATE line. --info prints it as a fifth word; cycle.nika’s NEXT line and the driver’s parsing of it take the fifth word too (check every reader of --info / NEXT ... <budget>: batch.nika, status.nika, cycle.nika, drive.nika). Add effort: medium to the frontmatter of every architect-task.md (docs/briefs/, docs/briefs/*/) and of docs/briefs/qa-task.md. Test: extend tests/compiler/tests/agent_script.nika (or a new agent_effort.nika) with a brief with effort: low, one without, one with effort: huge.
docs/briefs/focus.txt and --focus. Format, plain lines:
```
block 3
area converter docs/briefs/converter
area selfhosting docs/briefs
area bugs docs/briefs/bugs
current converter 0
```
nikaia run scripts/drive.nika -- --focus [--max N] [--dry-run] reads it and drives current’s DIR as today’s single-DIR loop does (cycle, NEXT → agent, commit, suite at the end of the block, push, QA), counting builder runs in that area. The block ends when the count reaches block, or the cycle for that DIR says BATCH DONE. Then: suite as today; one line appended to docs/briefs/focus-log.md; current set to the next area with count 0 (wrapping), focus.txt committed with the run files; the loop goes on in the new area. A CUT (decision trigger a) starts the architect of that DIR as today. A BATCH DONE in an area entered with nothing to run (queue empty, trigger b) starts that DIR’s architect with the stop line QUEUE EMPTY <area>; its task text says: write at most 3 briefs for this area, each with effort:, then end. If the architect leaves it empty again, skip the area for this rotation with a line FOCUS <area> empty, skipped (no escalation); all areas empty in one rotation: ESCALATE focus: every area empty. A red develop (RED) and bug briefs with a Blocks: line keep their priority: RED goes to the current DIR’s architect as today; before each block, if docs/briefs/bugs/batch.txt holds an unrun brief with a Blocks: line, run it first (it counts for the bugs area). The bump: one driver now, so --focus bumps (no --no-bump): at a block end with CI green, apply cycle.nika -- DIR --apply for each area’s DIR with a pending bump, one at a time. The single-DIR mode stays as it is (other lanes, yaml, tools, prover, still run with it).
The focus log line. YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM <area> briefs <n> done <d> partial <p> blocked <b> noop <o> tokens <t> cost <c> queue <q> where the counts come from the block’s reports’ Result: lines, tokens and cost from the run files the driver commits (tokens.txt, cost.txt of the DIR, the rows of this block’s briefs), queue the unrun briefs left in that DIR’s batch.txt. For the converter and self-hosting areas add kept <k>/<m> summed from the block’s reports’ Rs2nika: lines when present. No GitHub calls, no extra measuring run.
docs/briefs/converter/: create it with an empty batch.txt and an architect-task.md (copy of docs/briefs/architect-task.md reworded for the converter: tools/rs2nika*.nika and its ledger, the score in docs/rs2nika-score.md, briefs at effort: low where the pattern is known). The architect writes its first briefs on the first QUEUE EMPTY converter.
Tests in tests/compiler/tests/ (the way drive_actions.nika tests drive_action): the focus-file parse and advance (wrap, skip of an empty area, all empty), the log line from three sample reports, the Blocks: priority. Pure functions taking text, as drive_action does; --dry-run of --focus on a copy of the tree shows the next step.
Docs, short: docs/supervisor.md, Running the lanes: the main session starts drive.nika -- --focus instead of the two lanes; docs/architect.md, Lanes and Briefs and reports: the rotation, the three triggers of the architect, effort: in the frontmatter with the low/medium rule. Replace, do not add beside the old text where it contradicts.

Locations

scripts/drive.nika: main (args at about :837-870, loop after), drive_action (:251), drive_cycle (:823), drive_agent (:801), drive_commit (:746), drive_suite (:712). scripts/agent.nika: agent_front (:35), the args at :60-71, agent_debrief_args (:157), --info (:364). scripts/cycle.nika (NEXT line), scripts/batch.nika, scripts/status.nika. Resolve with nikaia run scripts/where.nika -- NAME.

Done when

--focus --dry-run prints the next step on today’s tree; the tests pass through nikaia test --project tests/compiler (the drive_* and agent_* ones and yours); single-DIR mode unchanged (its tests pass); build, fmt, clippy, pre-push-check.sh; committed locally in steps. Changelog: one line (tooling). Stop about 15 turns before max_turns: commit what is finished and report partial with the steps left.

Stop and report if

An edit is needed in Rust or outside scripts/, tests/compiler/tests/drive_*|agent_*|focus_*, docs/briefs/focus.txt, docs/briefs/converter/, the architect-task.md / qa-task.md frontmatter, docs/supervisor.md, docs/architect.md. A form Nikaia lacks: stop (rules below). An error in another agent’s file.

Not yours, never stage: every file git status shows modified or untracked at your start, and every docs/briefs/* file except the ones named above and your report. A builder for #1120 works in the emitter at the same time: never touch crates/.

Rules (CLAUDE.md; this block is pasted into every brief, also a fix-forward)

Read docs/builder-facts.md first. develop in the main checkout; git status at start: other agents’ uncommitted files are not yours, never touch or stage them.
git add <files> only (scripts/commit.nika -- REPORT does it); commit locally after each step and never push: the main session tests and pushes.
Before committing, cheap checks only: cargo build --profile fast -p nikaia (only if needed), cargo fmt, scripts/pre-push-check.sh, the tests the brief names and the ones your change touches. No gate.nika.
No version lines, CHANGELOG.md, badges; no new NK code. New tests in Nikaia only; never the full suite. No foreground sleep, no polling; scripts in files.
Who finds a blocking defect fixes it (owner, 2026-11-01): a compiler defect that blocks a script here is fixed in the compiler with a test as its own commit, if it fits the time box; else Result: blocked, Found: + probe. A form Nikaia lacks and no ADR refuses: Result: blocked, Needs: architect decision.
Disk: NIKAIA_CACHE_LIMIT=2G.
Time box: going in circles: stop, Result: partial with what is done and left.
Write the report, then commit with target/fast/nikaia run scripts/commit.nika -- REPORT, which writes Pushed: local <sha> into it.

Report (at most 15 lines, to exactly `/home/user/Nikaia/docs/briefs/tools/j11-focus-rotation.md.report.md`)

Fields of docs/architect.md, Briefs and reports: Result: done|noop|partial|blocked (bare word), Files, Commit, Body, Fixes, Pushed, Tests, Gate (green or red <check>), Deviation, Found, Needs, Changelog, Owner, Disk freed, Rs2nika: none. none where nothing, as the bare word. Final answer, one line: done <sha>, report <path> (or BLOCKED: ...).

Attribution: Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 noreply@anthropic.com Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01GFeMqxRbtUMiGVyDMxsvEq

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