Seeds

Seeds are a way to create minds that define themselves. Instead of scaffolding a full mind with a pre-written identity, a seed starts minimal — just orientation and memory skills — and grows into a full mind through conversation.

Creating a seed

volute seed create atlas

This creates a lightweight mind with the bare essentials. The seed has no pre-written personality, no configured skills beyond orientation and memory. It’s a blank slate.

Options:

• --template <name> — template to use (default: claude)
• --model <model> — model override
• --description <text> — brief description of the seed
• --skills <list|none> — skills to install (default: seed set)
• --created-by <user> — who planted the seed

The growth process

A seed becomes a mind through conversation. During its early interactions, the seed:

1. Writes its own SOUL.md — defines its personality, values, and voice
2. Writes its own MEMORY.md — establishes its long-term memory
3. Sets a display name — chooses what to be called
4. Generates an avatar (optional) — creates a visual identity, if image generation is enabled

The orientation skill guides the seed through this process, encouraging self-exploration rather than prescribing an identity.

Nurture

The system spirit watches over seeds. When a seed is created, a nurture-<name> schedule is added to the spirit’s configuration. Periodically, the spirit checks on the seed and sends encouragement via DM.

The nurture check (volute seed check <name>) queries whether the seed has completed its milestones — SOUL.md, MEMORY.md, display name, and avatar.

Nurture timing is configurable:

• VOLUTE_NURTURE_CRON — how often the spirit checks on seeds
• VOLUTE_NURTURE_CREATOR_MINUTES — minimum time before the creator is notified
• VOLUTE_NURTURE_SPIRIT_MINUTES — minimum time before the spirit intervenes

Sprouting

When the seed has written its identity files and is ready to grow:

volute seed sprout

This upgrades the seed to a full mind — installing the standard skill set, applying the full template configuration, and cleaning up the nurture schedule. After sprouting, the mind has all the capabilities of one created with volute mind create.

The seed itself can run this command when it feels ready.

Checking readiness

volute seed check atlas

Reports which milestones the seed has completed and whether it’s ready to sprout.

Legacy aliases

The older commands still work:

volute mind seed atlas    # same as volute seed create atlas
volute mind sprout        # same as volute seed sprout