Example output
What the ring actually produces.
Documentation is abstract until you see the artifacts. These are illustrative, realistic examples of each skill's output — a daily brief, an architecture decision record, a backlog triage, a voice-calibrated draft, and a Steward open-state handover.
CoS · scout-sweep Backlog Sentinel + daily-brief pipeline
① A scout-fed signal lands in the morning brief
When ring-tick's recurring cadence is enabled, a scout-sweep tick spawns each of the
five scouts under a shared scout_lease. Here, Backlog Sentinel observes an
ADO state-flip overnight, enqueues a signals row through the idempotent
sp_create_signal shim, and the CoS's next daily-brief picks it up. Two-phase
agent_runs audit row bookends the sweep.
// signals row (PascalCase entity: Signal) — written via SignalIn / sp_create_signal { "id": "3a47ec5c-1f7e-4b1c-9c9d-7a01b9f6c2e8", "source": "backlog-sentinel", "source_external_id": "ado:haleon-aiac:4471:rev7", // deterministic; K1 dedups on (source, source_external_id) "subject": "[ADO #4471] Pod-2 RAG residency review", "body_excerpt": "state-transition (Active → Blocked) | assigned_to=arjun@haleon.com | WIT=Risk | changed_by=k.maclaverty@haleon.com | tags=residency,pod-2", "classification_tags": ["scout:backlog-sentinel", "ado-backlog", "state-flip", "new-blocker"], "channel": "azure_devops", "sender_email": null, // ADO items aren't a person-from-channel "occurred_at": "2026-05-30T03:14:08Z", // item revision's own timestamp "signal_weight": 2, // bumped from default 1 — priority=High "raw_payload": null, // summary + ids only; never the raw work-item JSON "ingested_by_agent": "backlog-sentinel" }
// INSERT at sweep start (sp_create_agent_run, p_session_turn_seq=NULL → auto-allocated) { "id": "f12a91c7-5e10-4b62-86df-90b3a7dbe5e2", "agent_name": "backlog-sentinel", "tier": "tier_0_reader", "class": "scout_sweep", // legal post K2-verify (canonical 7-member enum) "model": null, // deterministic scout, no LLM call "triggered_by": "scout-sweep", "session_id": "sweep-2026-05-30T0700Z-3a47ec", "session_turn_seq": 1, // auto-allocated via sp_next_session_turn_seq "created_by_agent": "backlog-sentinel", "spawned_at": "2026-05-30T07:00:14Z", "detail_ref": null // not a rotation/snapshot — HS-4 ordering N/A } // UPDATE at sweep end (sp_update_agent_run — completion-fill ONLY; class/agent_name immutable) { "id": "f12a91c7…e5e2", "completed_at": "2026-05-30T07:00:51Z", "wall_clock_ms": 37000, "success": true, "tokens_in": 0, "tokens_out": 0, "notes": "items_observed=14, enqueues=3, dedup_noops=11, routed_to_sa=0" }
daily-brief run reads signals
with created_at >= now() - 24h, joins on classification tags, and lifts the
state-flip + new-blocker tags into the morning 5-3-2-1 top-5 risk slot. Because
Backlog Sentinel's body_excerpt is a structured one-line summary (never the raw
System.Description), the brief is high-signal without ever exposing repro steps, acceptance
criteria, or comment threads.
CoS Daily Brief skill
② The 5-3-2-1 morning brief
Posted to Charlie as a Teams DM at 07:00 (declared cron intent; today triggered on-demand). Exactly five risks, three decisions, two customer signals, one fire — plus a focus-block recommendation and the Quiet Watch footer. Compressed, high-signal, no throat-clearing (that's the voice profile for self-directed briefs).
Brief — 2026-05-29 · morning
Top 5 risks
- Data residency on Pod-2 RAG store — Haleon InfoSec flagged EU-data-in-US-region. Decision-shaped → routed to SA.
- AOAI quota on the shared Foundry project at 82% of monthly cap, 9 days left in cycle.
- Pod-4 sprint slip — 2 stories carried; B2D drift now 11% (watch, <15% threshold).
- SteerCo deck due Thu EOD — narrative for ratified ADR-7 still outstanding from SA.
- Stakeholder silence — K. McLaverty (sponsor-adjacent) no contact 6 days. In Quiet Watch.
3 decisions
- Residency ADR — awaiting your ratification ack (compliance: needs-review).
- Reuse-match collision on Pod-3 caching pattern vs ratified ADR-4 — needs your call to deviate.
- Pod-1 resourcing: pull one FDE to Pod-2 for the residency work? (engagement-class)
2 customer signals
- Positive: Haleon platform lead praised the Copilot rollout cadence in yesterday's sync.
- Watch: procurement asked (again) about Purview licensing scope — third time in 2 weeks.
1 fire
🔥 Residency flag is the one thing that can slip the Pod-2 pilot date. Everything else can wait a day.
Focus block
10:00–11:30 — ratify the residency ADR. Calendar's clear; I held it.
Quiet Watch
K. McLaverty (6d) · A. Grigoryan (4d) · Pod-3 lead (4d). Suggested nudge: McLaverty today.
Behind the scenes a briefs row is written with
structure_version = "5-3-2-1", the consumed signal IDs are stamped with
consumed_in_brief_id, and the focus-block is validated against Charlie's real calendar before it's suggested.
SA Decision Capture skill (technical)
③ An architecture decision record
The durable output of the Solution Architect. Written to last — a successor should be able to read it months later and understand exactly what was decided and why. Here it is mid-lifecycle, just after the compliance gate.
(Lifecycle stages are now DB-backed on adrs.review_stage, CHECK-constrained
to {draft, reviewed, compliance-checked, ratified} and advanced through the CAS-guarded
sp_advance_adr_stage SP — distinct from adrs.status
({proposed, accepted, superseded, rejected}). See ISS-19 / Fix-G.
The Reviewer/Compliance gates are enforced by the skill and audited by the Steward.)
// adrs row (PascalCase entity: Adr) { "id": "ADR-0011", "title": "EU data residency for Pod-2 RAG vector store", "status": "proposed", // adrs.status enum (draft|proposed|accepted|rejected|superseded) "review_stage": "compliance-checked", // adrs.review_stage — DB-backed via sp_advance_adr_stage (CAS-guarded, ISS-19 / Fix-G) "owning_peer": "SA", "decision_text": "Pin the Pod-2 retrieval-augmented vector store and its backing storage to a single EU region (West Europe). Cross-region replication disabled. Embeddings generated by an EU-deployed model instance; no consumer-health text leaves the EU boundary at any hop.", "context": "Haleon InfoSec flagged EU-data-in-US-region risk on the Pod-2 RAG store (signal #S-2291). Consumer-health surface in scope.", "compliance_scope": "consumer-health", "related_pod": "Pod-2", "related_ado_ids": [4471, 4489], "reuse_candidate_id": null, // no existing pattern matched "reviewer": { "result": "pass", "attempts": 2, // rejected once on replication ambiguity "note": "First draft left replication undefined. Tightened to explicit disable." }, "compliance": { "state": "needs-review", "reason": "Regulatory determination for this use case not yet gathered at mobilisation; residency control is sound but use case needs a posture." }, "awaiting_charlie": true }
needs-review rather than rubber-stamping,
because this use case hasn't had its regulatory posture determined yet. SA cannot ratify;
only Charlie can.
CoS ADO Bulk Triage skill
④ The Friday backlog sweep
Every Friday at 16:30, the Chief of Staff sweeps the backlog, age-ranks open items, and proposes state changes — none of which are written to ADO without Charlie's sign-off. The summary doubles as the Friday end-of-day brief.
ADO Triage — Week 2026-W22
Open: 38 (Δ vs last week: −4)
Top stale
- #4129 (45d, Risk, owner: A. Singh) — recommend: nudge owner
- #4088 (38d, Blocker, owner: Pod-3) — recommend: escalate to you
- #3997 (31d, Bug, owner: M. Tan) — recommend: nudge owner
Recommended state changes (3) — need your sign-off
- #3902 → Done (work complete per signal #S-2270)
- #3914 → Won't Fix (superseded by ADR-0007)
- #4051 → Active (re-opened; new dependency surfaced)
Owners with >3 stale items
A. Singh (5) · Pod-3 (4)
Each recommended change is traceable to a signal, an ADR, or an explicit
Charlie comment — never a vague "this looks stale." Nudge drafts for named owners are queued
as comms_drafts (still gated), and external Haleon owners are surfaced for sign-off
before a draft is even written.
CoS + Outbound Voice skill
⑤ A draft, before and after voice
Every outbound message passes through the Outbound Voice skill, which calibrates tone to the recipient and makes it sound like Charlie — not like an assistant. Here's a nudge to an internal owner about a stale risk.
"Hi Arjun,
I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to kindly follow up
regarding work item #4129, which appears to have been open for some time. Would you be
able to provide an update at your earliest convenience? Thank you so much for your
attention to this matter.
Best regards"
"Arjun — #4129's been open 45 days and it's on my risk list now. What's the blocker? If it's stuck on the Pod-2 residency call, that should clear this week. Ping me if you need air cover."
awaiting_signoff and only sends once Charlie approves.
Steward Rotation ceremony
⑥ A handover at rotation
When the Steward rotates a degrading peer, the outgoing agent emits an
## Open state block. The successor adopts it verbatim and picks up exactly where
its predecessor left off — no institutional memory lost. This is the Chief of Staff handing over.
## Open state - Current slot: midday - Briefs written today: 1, last slot: 2026-05-29T07:00:11Z - comms_drafts pending sign-off: 3 [CD-0412 (4h), CD-0418 (2h), CD-0421 (35m)] - quiet_watch in nudge cycle: 2 [McLaverty (6d), Grigoryan (4d)] - decisions routed to SA awaiting pickup: [D-1190 residency] - active steerco_preps row: SP-W22 (week 2026-W22) - today's focus-block rec: 10:00–11:30 ratify residency ADR - Meeting Prep gates (next 12h): [PD sync 15:30 — prep due 15:00] - last 3 signals consumed, not yet briefed: [S-2301, S-2302, S-2305] - carrying forward from Charlie: "keep Purview licensing questions off my plate until procurement comes back in writing"
That's the whole machine.
Three agents, one shared brain, strict boundaries, human sign-off, and a self-healing lifecycle — documented end to end.