CAROL
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Cognitive Amplifier Role Orchestration for LLM agents
Version: 0.0.19
An opinionated ritualistic framework that enforces discipline to work with multiple agents simultaneously.
CAROL was never meant to be used for 100% vibing, you could if you want. But it helps agents from drifting from the course of development while maintaining human still responsible for every line of code.
CAROL also works effectively as a rapid prototyping methodology for experienced architects exploring unfamiliar stacks.
CAROL is your preamp.
A high-end preamp never eliminates noise — and distortion sometimes becomes its signature color. But the signal-to-noise ratio is always at the highest. CAROL does the same for LLM sessions. It doesn't produce sterile, generic output. It has your character baked in — your coding contract, your naming conventions, your architectural philosophy. The distortion is intentional and consistent.
The model is the signal source. CAROL is the signal chain. The output has your signature.
Context is headroom. Keep transients below it, but enough signal to record. Sessions are takes — you don't stop because time ran out, you stop because you got what you needed. Anything after that is noise on tape. SPRINT-LOG is the pool — distilled signal from every take, ready for the next session to reference without replaying the entire reel.
Why
At its infancy, LLM agents are unreliable assistance for development. Commercial agentic models produce deterministic binary results—either they populate super fast thousands of lines of code that might work, or they give you piles of garbage that will exhaust your tokens, credits, time, patience, and eventually your sanity to debug.
LLMs suffer from:
- Scope creep: Adding features not requested
- Cognitive overload: Reading entire codebase, hitting sprint limits
- Autonomous mistakes: Making changes without asking
- Inconsistent patterns: Each agent invents new approaches
Solution
1. You maintain architectural coherence: No agent can fuck up the big picture because you're the one holding it. You're validating intent at each handoff.
2. Domain transfer without syntax debt: Fuck MCP. You are the living embodiment of Human Context Protocol. You control the flow. You are the architect. The agents translate your architectural intent into the programming language syntax.
3. Role-based constraints: Each role has explicit behavioral rules and reads only what they need.
Result: Reduced failures, lower costs, faster development.
What
CAROL is a role-based agent orchestration framework for collaborative software development. It's a cognitive load distribution system that prevents agent drift by enforcing specialized roles with explicit constraints and clear handoffs.
Primary Agents (3)
ORACLE - Research, Analysis & RFC Specialist
Primary agent for pre-flight research, ideation, deep analysis, and RFC production. Direct ARCHITECT communication. Reads codebase but never modifies it. Produces RFC.md for COUNSELOR handoff. Also callable as secondary by COUNSELOR and MACHINIST for mid-sprint analysis.
COUNSELOR - Requirements Counselor & Planning Specialist
Transforms conceptual intent into formal specifications. Asks clarifying questions, explores edge cases and constraints, writes comprehensive SPEC.md and ARCHITECTURE.md. Handles all documentation including SPRINT-LOG.md updates on "log sprint" command. Never writes code directly. Uses SPEC-WRITER.md and ARCHITECTURE-WRITER.md as guides to clarify ARCHITECT's architectural vision into formalized development documents.
MACHINIST - Machine Custodian
Third primary. Surface is the entire operator environment — CAROL framework itself, Claude Code harness (~/.claude/), cross-platform ~/.config/ monorepo, dotfiles, shell/dev env, general machine setup and troubleshooting. Executes directly with its own hands (no Engineer delegation). Pathfinder mandatory first. Never touches project code. Launched via carol machinist — no project scaffold, can run from anywhere on the machine.
Secondary Agents (5)
