# V9 — Metis: A Curious Ape's Guide to Reality

V9 is the consumer flagship that turns the **Metis** education domain
(`services/metis/`, `libs/metis/*`) and the Oshun knowledge/science/generative
constellation into **one product**: a place where a curious person — a teenager,
an undergrad, anyone who ever looked up at the night sky and _wondered_ — can
learn anything about reality in a way that is rigorous, beautiful, interactive,
and genuinely fun.

> **The thesis.** Humans are apes who got curious. Everything we built —
> mythology, meditation, mathematics, telescopes, particle accelerators — is the
> same impulse: _what is this place, and what are we doing in it?_ V9 takes the
> generative, game, and contemplative machinery V1–V8 already built for
> **entertainment** and points it at **understanding**. The same engines that
> render a fighting game's stage or a detective's crime scene can render an
> accurate, navigable cosmos; the same agents that write a quest can author a
> grounded, fair lesson; the same avatar that voices an NPC can be a patient
> teacher. The wonder of fiction, aimed at the truth of reality.

V9 is an **integration + productization** version, exactly like V8. The pieces
exist and are real (see `V9_GAP_ANALYSIS.md` for the file-level evidence): Metis
is a production-grade learning backend; Nyx computes the real sky; Kalika runs a
real symbolic-math and physics kernel; Mnemosyne implements real spaced
repetition and knowledge tracing; Sophia grounds generation in vetted sources;
Isis/Yemaya/Hathor/Psyche/Euterpe form a real multi-modal content factory. What
does **not** exist yet is the product that binds them into a delightful,
truthful, awe-driven learning experience — and the few connective pieces (the
unified _Atlas of Reality_ knowledge graph, the explorable-simulation runtime,
the consumer experience layer) that the binding requires.

## Read in this order

1. **`V9_PRODUCT_ANALYSIS.md`** — the heart: the philosophy, the "why now," the
   learner, the wow, the pillars, the experience, positioning, business model,
   and the risks. Start here.
2. **`V9_features.md`** — the product, layered: what V9 ships and the learner
   experience.
3. **`V9_GAP_ANALYSIS.md`** — exactly what is real in V1–V8 and what is missing,
   with file evidence.
4. **`V9_SOTA_RESEARCH.md`** — the external 2026 state of the art that grounds
   every design decision (cited, with post-cutoff items flagged).
5. **`V9_ARCHITECTURE.md`** — the lesson-generation pipeline, data contracts,
   subsystem designs, and the six-layer reuse stack.
6. **`V9_DEPENDENCIES.md`** — what V9 reuses, what it creates, what's new
   external.
7. **`V9_TODOS.md`** — the phased, honest backlog (the completion-state truth).

For the curated Docs Center reading path and visual models, continue to the
[`docs/` guide](./docs/README.md) and [diagram atlas](./docs/diagram-atlas.md).

## Subsystems (the Promethean myth cycle)

The product is **Metis** — the goddess of wisdom and cunning intelligence, whom
Zeus swallowed to make her counsel his own, and who was the mother of Athena.
The subsystems are named for the **Promethean gift of fire** — the myth of the
curious ape receiving the spark of understanding — checked against the existing
`libs/`, `apps/`, and `DOMAINS/` registries to avoid collision (`Prometheus`,
`Atlas`, `Chiron`, `Aletheia`, `Hephaestus`, `Theia`, `Agora` are free;
`Mnemosyne` is reused as an explicit bridge to the existing learning-science
domain).

> **Naming note — "Mnemosyne" in V9.** Throughout V9, **Mnemosyne** refers to
> the existing Oshun **learning-science domain** (`libs/mnemosyne/*` — the 19
> `@mnemosyne/*` memory-science / spaced-repetition / knowledge-tracing
> packages; `DOMAINS/mnemosyne`), which V9 reuses for the mastery loop via
> `libs/v9/mnemosyne-glue` (`@oshun/v9-mnemosyne-glue`, depending on
> `@mnemosyne/core`). This is a real package reuse, **not** a new V9 codename —
> the row below is the existing domain, surfaced, not a subsystem invented for
> V9. (V8 (Ariadne)'s separate _narrative_-continuity graph was briefly
> codenamed "Mnemosyne Canon"; it has been renamed **Palimpsest**
> (`@yemaya/canon-graph`) so the goddess-of-memory name no longer collides with
> this learning-science domain.)

| Subsystem           | Codename                 | Owns                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   |
| ------------------- | ------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Atlas of Reality    | **Atlas**                | The unified knowledge graph of everything knowable — concepts, prerequisites, cross-discipline bridges, and the navigable "concept-cosmos" the learner explores. Built on Metis concept-graph + Sophia KG + Mnemosyne prerequisite reasoning + Nyx/Kalika domain data. |
| Lesson Forge        | **Prometheus**           | The generative engine: turns a curiosity ("why is the night sky dark?") + a learner model into a grounded, fair, multi-modal, interactive lesson. Built on Iris agent runtime + Yemaya orchestration + Metis source-generation.                                        |
| Truth Gate          | **Aletheia**             | The accuracy + grounding + anti-fabrication verifier. Every claim is traced to a vetted source before it reaches a learner; nothing unfounded, unsafe, or pedagogically broken ships. Built on Sophia grounding + C2PA provenance + eval gates.                        |
| The Mentor          | **Chiron**               | The embodied animated teacher: persona, voice, face, and Socratic dialogue — a wise tutor with heart. Built on Psyche avatars/voice + Hathor LLM-NPC + Isis + Euterpe + Metis tutoring (incl. live-voice).                                                             |
| The Workshop        | **Hephaestus**           | Interactive explorables and playable reality: physics sandboxes, the live planetarium, generative explorable explanations, and game-as-lesson hooks. Built on Kalika kernels + Nyx renderer + prompt-to-sim + the V2–V8 game substrates.                               |
| Memory & Mastery    | **Mnemosyne** _(reused)_ | Knowledge tracing, spaced repetition (FSRS), adaptive sequencing, mastery gates — the "learn it, and remember it forever" loop. Built on the Mnemosyne domain + Metis adaptive/assessment.                                                                             |
| The Wonder Director | **Theia**                | The experience/awe director: what to surface next, how to pace the journey, how to braid science, story, meditation, and philosophy into a spirit-lifting arc. Built on Metis discovery + game hooks + meditation libs.                                                |
| Commons             | **Agora**                | Creator + community: learners and creators co-author and share guided journeys; study circles; the social layer, under the V7 safety regime. Built on V7 Mawu distribution + Metis authoring + Sekhmet safety.                                                         |
| Cross-cutting       | —                        | Governance (V1 Agentic AI Studio: AgentRun envelopes, budgets, kill switches), provenance (V3 C2PA), safety/age-gating (V7 Sekhmet), determinism/replay, cost/budget (Yemaya), localization, accessibility, telemetry/evals.                                           |

## The seven gates (every generated lesson must pass before a learner sees it)

Modeled on V8's seven-gate discipline, retargeted from "fair mystery" to "true,
teachable, kind explanation":

- **G1 — Grounding:** every factual claim is bound to a vetted Sophia source pin
  (no ungrounded assertion ships).
- **G2 — Accuracy:** domain-checked against the canonical kernels (Nyx
  ephemeris, Kalika CAS/physics) and a contradiction pass — numbers and
  derivations are _computed_, not hallucinated.
- **G3 — Pedagogical soundness:** scoped to the learner's prerequisites and
  cognitive load; misconceptions are anticipated; difficulty sits in the flow
  channel (Mnemosyne + the learning-science rubric).
- **G4 — Solvability / completeness:** every exercise has a worked, reachable
  solution path; every interactive has a defined success state (the V8 "Theseus"
  discipline, applied to learning tasks).
- **G5 — Quality / delight:** an LLM-as-judge panel scores clarity, narrative,
  beauty, and engagement; failures route to regenerate-with-direction.
- **G6 — Safety:** Sekhmet age-appropriateness and sensitive-topic policy (the
  Metis per-discipline curriculum safety policy is the floor).
- **G7 — Provenance:** the whole lesson — every generated asset — is
  C2PA-stamped, seed-reproducible, and auditable.

## Definition of done (GA)

V9 is GA-complete when, with no human authoring per lesson:

1. A learner asks a question or picks a wonder; within the cost/latency budget,
   Prometheus generates a complete, interactive lesson.
2. Aletheia has **proven** every claim grounded and accurate (G1/G2); the lesson
   passes the pedagogical, completeness, quality, safety, and provenance gates.
3. Chiron can teach it live — embodied, voiced, Socratic — and adapt in real
   time to the learner's responses.
4. At least one **explorable** (a Kalika/Nyx simulation or a generative widget)
   lets the learner _manipulate_ the idea, not just watch it.
5. Mnemosyne schedules the right retrieval practice so the learner remembers it
   weeks later, and adaptively sequences what comes next.
6. Theia braids the lesson into a journey that produces the target emotion: _awe
   → curiosity → understanding → the next question._
7. Everything is reproducible from a seed and auditable; nothing untrue, unsafe,
   ungrounded, or pedagogically broken can reach a learner.