Laniakea Phase 9: Sentinel Base & Warden

Status: Draft
Last Updated: 2026-02-12

Executive Summary

Phase 9 is the point where Laniakea transitions from “governance-directed operations on a daily cadence” to Prime-side autonomous execution under strict safety constraints.

The deliverables are:

• stl-base (Baseline Sentinel): the public execution surface that can hold execution keys and run Prime strategies continuously.
• stl-warden (Warden Sentinels): independent safety monitors with halt authority.
• Auction activation for OSRC (srUSDS origination capacity) and liability duration matching capacity, driven by sealed bids from stl-base.

This phase explicitly replaces Phase 1–4's temporary measures:

• governance-published OSRC allocations → sealed-bid OSRC auction results
• governance-published Duration allocations → sealed-bid Duration reservation + tug-of-war/excess auction behavior (auction mode)

Scope

Objective

Deploy sentinel formations for Primes such that:

• execution is continuous and automated within bounded authority
• safety is enforceable by independent operators
• daily settlement includes auction-based allocation inputs produced by Prime behavior, not governance discretion

In Scope (Phase 9 Deliverables)

1. Baseline Sentinel (stl-base-{prime})

   • Holds the Execution Engine (pBEAMs / signing keys for Prime PAU operations)
   • Executes the public “Base Strategy” defined in Prime Artifacts
   • Produces auditable logs into Synome (including counterfactual simulation outputs)

2. Warden Sentinels (stl-warden-{prime}-{operator})

   • Independent, third-party operators (not the Baseline operator)
   • Continuous monitoring and invariant enforcement
   • Halt/freeze authority over the Execution Engine

3. Auction activation (OSRC + Duration)

   • stl-base instances submit sealed bids
   • lpha-auction switches from pre-auction publication to sealed-bid matching (auction mode)
   • Outputs are consumed by lpha-lcts (OSRC capacity/yield inputs) and published for broader system use

4. TTS-based safety economics

   • Formalize Time to Shutdown (TTS) as a parameter bounded by warden quality and diversity
   • Tie rate limits and required risk capital to RateLimit × TTS

Explicit Non-Goals (Deferred)

• Stream Sentinels (stl-stream) and streaming accord/carry economics (Phase 10)
• Teleonome layers beyond sentinels (beyond roadmap)

Sentinel Formation Architecture (Why It’s a Formation)

Sentinels are not “one bot with keys”. They are a coordinated formation:

In Phase 9:

• stl-base and stl-warden go live.
• stl-stream is optional/absent; Baseline runs Base Strategy continuously.

Canonical sentinel formation semantics are defined in trading/sentinel-network.md.

Auction Activation (Switching From Phase 4 Pre-Auction)

What Changes at the Interface

In Phase 4, Core Council sets srUSDS rates and capacity directly.

In Phase 9, lpha-auction:

• accepts sealed bids from stl-base
• runs matching logic (uniform price where applicable)
• publishes clearing results using the same output schemas consumed in earlier phases

Temporary Measures for Safe Activation

Auction activation is a sensitive cutover. The temporary measures below are intended to reduce discontinuity and preserve auditability.

1. Dual-Mode Period (“Shadow Outputs”)

   • For a bounded activation window, governance continues publishing pre-auction allocations alongside the auction results as a comparison artifact.
   • Only one is marked “binding” for settlement.
   • This provides an operational sanity check before fully deprecating the governance path.

2. Participation Policy

   • Auctions require stl-base participation. During early rollout, some Primes may not be sentinel-operated yet.
   • Temporary policy options (must be chosen explicitly):
     • (A) “No sentinel, no participation” (non-participating Primes receive zero auction capacity)
     • (B) “Proxy bid” (governance publishes a proxy bid on behalf of non-sentinel Primes)
   • The policy must be explicit in Synome so results remain interpretable.

3. Conservative Guardrails on Day 0

   • Start with conservative rate limits and tight bid bounds.
   • Increase operational bandwidth only after warden performance is validated and TTS assumptions hold.

4. Emergency Reversion

   • If auction mode fails, governance can temporarily revert lpha-auction to pre-auction mode for a bounded period.
   • Reversions must be explicitly labeled and post-mortemed; they are not “silent fallbacks”.

The bid formats, timing, and auction semantics are specified in:

• accounting/daily-settlement-cycle.md

Warden Operations and TTS Economics

What Wardens Do

Wardens are deliberately narrow:

• monitor Baseline behavior continuously
• check hard invariants (rate limits, guardrails, risk thresholds)
• halt/freeze execution if invariants are violated or compromise is suspected

Wardens do not optimize and do not stream intent.

Why TTS Matters

The system’s worst-case damage from a rogue Baseline is bounded by:

Maximum Damage = Rate Limit × TTS
Required Risk Capital ≥ Rate Limit × TTS

Phase 9 makes TTS real by:

• requiring operator diversity (multiple independent wardens)
• recording warden attestations and halt performance
• using TTS as a first-class input to rate limit governance

Temporary Measures (Very Detailed)

Phase 9 introduces high-autonomy software for the first time. Temporary measures are required to ensure safety and governance legibility.

1) “Public Base Strategy Only” (Interim for Stream-Influenced Execution)

Until Phase 10:

• Baseline executes only the public Base Strategy from Prime Artifacts.
• No proprietary stream intents are accepted.

This provides a stable baseline for warden validation and auction behavior before adding additional complexity.

2) Tight Execution Surface (Interim for Full Strategy Breadth)

Early Baselines should be deployed with:

• minimal pBEAM scope required for the Base Strategy
• narrow target allowlists
• conservative rate limits and slow ramp-ups (SORL-constrained)

Expansion occurs only after warden operators demonstrate reliable halt performance.

3) Human-On-Call Requirement (Interim for Mature Incident Response)

Even with wardens, early operations need human escalation:

• Each formation must have an on-call protocol for GovOps + warden operators.
• Halts must trigger governance notifications and incident tickets.
• Unhalts require explicit acknowledgement and a post-mortem plan.

Acceptance Criteria (Exit to Phase 10)

Phase 9 is considered complete when:

• stl-base is operating at least one Prime end-to-end within bounded authority
• Multiple independent stl-warden operators are live and demonstrably capable of halting execution
• OSRC and Duration auctions run in auction mode with sealed bids from stl-base
• lpha-auction outputs are consumed reliably by downstream systems (including lpha-lcts)
• TTS is measured/estimated in practice and used to justify operational rate limits and risk capital requirements

Links (Relevant Specs)

• Roadmap overview: roadmap-overview.md
• Sentinel formations + TTS economics: sentinel-network.md
• Risk framework connection points: sentinel-integration.md
• Auction timing, bid interfaces, and settlement: daily-settlement-cycle.md
• Beacon taxonomy: beacon-framework.md