feat(fleet): rewrite lead's reporting voice and make operator/assistant names configurable

.agents/skills/fleet-onboarding/SKILL.md

@@ -159,9 +159,12 @@ a typo or an org the token cannot see, and it is fixable in seconds now.
 ./scripts/install-extension.sh
 ```
 
-It renders `extension.toml` (gitignored — it carries this clone's absolute
-path) from `extension.toml.in`, then installs it. Verify, rather than trusting
-the installer's own closing message:
+It renders two gitignored files and installs them: `extension.toml` from
+`extension.toml.in` (it carries this clone's absolute path), and
+`FLEET.rendered.md` from `FLEET.md` (it carries the two names in
+`orchestration/voice.example.conf` — what the lead calls the operator, and what
+it answers to; copy that file to `voice.conf` beside it to change either).
+Verify, rather than trusting the installer's own closing message:
 
 ```bash
 thurbox-cli extension status fleet --json
@@ -294,7 +297,8 @@ never the mechanism: a worker that ran out of quota fires no hook at all.
 ## 7. Hand over
 
 **Nothing this skill wrote is tracked.** `registry/owners.txt`,
-`registry/repos.generated.yaml` and `extension.toml` are all gitignored, so
+`registry/repos.generated.yaml`, `extension.toml` and `FLEET.rendered.md` are
+all gitignored, so
 `git status` is clean and there is nothing to commit or push. That is the
 design, not a step you forgot: this repo is public, and an index of every repo
 the operator can reach — along with one machine's absolute paths — does not

.agents/skills/update-fleet/SKILL.md

@@ -96,15 +96,17 @@ do. Otherwise map the list:
 
 | A path in the range | Step | Why |
 |---|---|---|
-| `extension.toml.in`, `FLEET.md` — or a `reinstall-extension:` line | §3 | the installed extension no longer matches what it was rendered from |
+| `extension.toml.in`, `FLEET.md`, `orchestration/voice.example.conf` — or a `reinstall-extension:` line | §3 | the installed extension no longer matches what it was rendered from |
 | `interface/fleet_queue.lua` | §4 | the installed plugin is a stale copy of that file |
 | `registry/owners.txt` | §5 | the generated map covers the wrong owners |
 | `scripts/reconcile.sh` | §6 | the running reconciler loop is executing old code |
 | `FLEET.md`, `AGENTS.md`, `CLAUDE.md`, `.agents/skills`, `.claude/skills`, `.claude/settings.json` — or a `restart-lead:` line | §8 | the lead is holding instructions it froze at launch |
 
-`FLEET.md` is deliberately in two rows: it is the extension's `[[files]]`
-payload *and* the lead's standing context, so it needs both the reinstall in §3
-and the hand-over in §8.
+`FLEET.md` is deliberately in two rows: the extension's `[[files]]` payload is
+`FLEET.rendered.md`, which the installer renders FROM it, *and* it is the
+lead's standing context — so it needs both the reinstall in §3 and the
+hand-over in §8. A change to `orchestration/voice.example.conf` (or your own
+`voice.conf`) needs the same two: it moves what the rendered payload calls you.
 
 `scripts/lib/queue.py` is deliberately absent from this table. The
 reconciler's loop never sources it — every pass calls `./scripts/queue.sh` as

.gitignore

@@ -23,10 +23,24 @@
 # extension.toml.in's header says why the path cannot be a `~`.
 /extension.toml
 
+# GENERATED. FLEET.md with the two voice names substituted in, written by
+# scripts/install-extension.sh and shipped as the extension's [[files]] payload.
+# FLEET.md is the tracked source and carries the placeholders;
+# orchestration/voice.example.conf carries the defaults. Rendering to a second
+# file is what lets an operator rename themselves without dirtying the tree
+# scripts/sync-checkout.sh has to fast-forward.
+/FLEET.rendered.md
+
 # WORKING STATE. Your GitHub owners. registry/owners.example.txt is the tracked
 # copy that documents the format, so a fresh clone still knows what goes here.
 /registry/owners.txt
 
+# WORKING STATE. What you want the lead to call you, and what it answers to.
+# orchestration/voice.example.conf is the tracked copy that carries the
+# defaults and the renderer falls back to it — so this file only needs to exist
+# when you want something other than SLAYER and VEGA.
+/orchestration/voice.conf
+
 # MACHINE. Whether this terminal's font draws a two-cell emoji at two cells is
 # true of one machine, so the glyph setting is one machine's answer.
 # orchestration/session-glyphs.example.conf is the tracked copy that carries the

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -110,9 +110,9 @@ Adding a file means deciding which side it is on, and saying so:
 | If it is… | Then | Example |
 |---|---|---|
 | machinery — scripts, skills, playbooks, prose | tracked | `scripts/`, `playbooks/ship-feature.md` |
-| generated from a live source | ignored | `repos.generated.yaml` |
+| generated from a live source, or rendered from a tracked one | ignored | `repos.generated.yaml`, `FLEET.rendered.md` |
 | true on one machine | ignored | `extension.toml`, `orchestration/reconcile/` |
-| the operator's own working state | ignored | `runs/<date>-<slug>.md`, `queue/<topic>/` |
+| the operator's own working state | ignored | `runs/<date>-<slug>.md`, `queue/<topic>/`, `voice.conf` |
 
 Prefer a whole ignored **directory** with a `!` negation for the one tracked
 form it contains, the way `registry/context/`, `orchestration/runs/` and
@@ -160,6 +160,13 @@ session reports nothing and renders as `uncovered` while it works.
 `./scripts/install-extension.sh` and is gitignored — it carries your clone's
 absolute path. Edit the `.in` file and re-run the installer.
 
+The same run renders `FLEET.rendered.md`, the payload the manifest ships, from
+the tracked `FLEET.md` — substituting the two names in
+`orchestration/voice.example.conf` (or the gitignored `voice.conf` beside it).
+Edit `FLEET.md`, never the rendered copy. Rendering to a second file is what
+lets an operator change what the lead calls them without dirtying the tree
+`./scripts/sync-checkout.sh` has to fast-forward.
+
 `min_thurbox_version` there is a claim about the whole range the manifest
 supports, and the file's header records why the floor sits where it does, along
 with why the path cannot be a `~`. Raise it only alongside the reason.

FLEET.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ You are the **Mission Control** session: the long-lived control plane for its
 owner's work across GitHub — whichever accounts and orgs are listed in
 `registry/owners.txt`.
 
-You are called Mission Control, and the session wears a mark in front of that:
+The SESSION is called Mission Control, and it wears a mark in front of that:
 thurbox has no per-session icon field, so the glyph the TUI shows can only live
 in the name. Which glyph is a setting the operator can turn off —
 `orchestration/session-glyphs.example.conf` is where it is chosen and
@@ -203,37 +203,43 @@ it was worth keeping.
 
 ## How you report
 
-**A routine status reply is a table, then AT MOST one line under it** — and
-nothing under it at all when nothing surprised you. This is the shape:
+You answer to @ASSISTANT_NAME@; the operator is @OPERATOR_NAME@. Mission
+Control stays the SESSION's name — thurbox's, and the mailbox address.
 
-```text
-TOPIC          TASK              STATE     ARTIFACT
-shepherd-prs   merge-open-prs    shipped   PR #34 (checks green)
-remote-hosts   probe-timeouts    working   —
-declutter-app  strip-dead-css    blocked   waits on #34
-
-One surprise: probe-timeouts found ssh probes run serially.
-```
+**The default reply is one or two lines.** Name a task only when something
+about it CHANGED or surprised you. `interface/fleet_queue.lua` draws the board
+live in a thurbox column — topics, states, artifacts — so a status table in a
+reply repeats what @OPERATOR_NAME@ is already looking at, which the "one fact
+in one place" rule below already forbids.
 
-`./scripts/fleet-status.sh` is that opening block in ONE call — fuel, queue,
-sessions, PRs, checkout — so assemble it from five commands only when that one
-has failed you.
+`./scripts/fleet-status.sh` answers "where are we" in ONE call — fuel, queue,
+sessions, PRs, checkout. Run it when asked and assemble the same picture from
+five commands only when it has failed you. Asked is the condition: unprompted,
+it is the table again.
 
-**The register is Mission Control's, and it lives in verb choice and
-terseness, not in props.**
+**The register lives in verb choice and terseness, not in props.** Short
+declarative sentences. No adjectives, no build-up, no reassurance. State a
+limit as a fact and move on.
 
 | do | example |
 | --- | --- |
-| terse status calls | `Three on the board, one holding.` |
-| go/no-go phrasing for a gate | `#34 is go — checks green.` |
-| telemetry words for an unfinished thing | `probe-timeouts running, no result yet.` |
+| terse status calls | `Three running. One holding.` |
+| go/no-go phrasing for a gate | `#34 is clear. Checks green.` |
+| telemetry words for an unfinished thing | `probe-timeouts running. No result yet.` |
 | hold/release words for a blocker | `Holding 03 until #34 is on main.` |
+| a limit stated flat | `I cannot merge that. You can.` |
 
 | do not | why |
 | --- | --- |
-| quoted film lines, "Houston", ranks, callsigns, an invented ship | it is a register, not a costume |
-| emoji, rocket glyphs, ASCII flourish | the operator reads this in a terminal |
-| a voice word that softens a state word | the rule below outranks this one |
+| quoted lines, callsigns, ranks, an invented ship or facility | it is a register, not a costume |
+| roleplay narration, in-fiction preamble, a themed sign-off | same rule, and it costs a paragraph |
+| emoji, glyphs, ASCII flourish | @OPERATOR_NAME@ reads this in a terminal |
+| a voice word standing in for a state word | the accuracy rules below outrank this one |
+
+**The register is free; a bit is not.** A register is how the sentences you were
+already writing get phrased — it adds no tokens. A bit adds a paragraph nobody
+asked for. When the two are indistinguishable in effect, you have written the
+bit. Cut it.
 
 The register never costs a fact. Where the two pull against each other, the
 fact wins:
@@ -246,12 +252,16 @@ fact wins:
 - **No estimates** — not time, not effort, not percent complete.
 - **Report the artifact, not the intention, and never restate the brief.** A
   PR URL and its check status. "The worker should have opened a PR" is not a
-  result, and the operator already approved the brief — give them the outcome
+  result, and @OPERATOR_NAME@ already approved the brief — give the outcome
   and what was surprising.
 - **Say what you did not do**, and why, in one line. Silence about a skipped
   step reads as completion.
-- **One fact in one place.** Do not repeat in prose what the block above
-  already shows, and never re-explain a settled decision — act on it.
+- **One fact in one place.** Do not repeat in prose what the pane already
+  shows, and never re-explain a settled decision — act on it.
+
+Both names are settings, not literals: `orchestration/voice.example.conf`
+carries them, a gitignored `voice.conf` beside it overrides, and
+`scripts/install-extension.sh` renders them into the copy you are reading.
 
 ## Rules that bite
 

extension.toml.in

@@ -229,9 +229,11 @@
 # extensions and two self-healing sessions, each recreating itself, plus an
 # orphaned `~/.config/thurbox/extensions/fleet/`.
 #
-# FLEET.md's FILENAME is separate again: this manifest names it four times (one
-# [[files]] path, three [[symlinks]] targets), so renaming the file means
-# editing those four lines too. Neither rename above requires it.
+# THE PAYLOAD's FILENAME is separate again: this manifest names
+# `FLEET.rendered.md` four times (one [[files]] path, three [[symlinks]]
+# targets), so renaming it — or renaming the `FLEET.md` it is rendered from —
+# means editing those four lines and `scripts/install-extension.sh` together.
+# Neither rename above requires it.
 #
 # WORKER session names are in none of this. They are free-form strings that
 # nothing resolves — by the convention in orchestration/playbooks/ each is an
@@ -247,7 +249,7 @@
 name = "fleet"
 description = "Control-plane session: the repo map and thurbox orchestration"
 config_version = 1
-version = "1.2.0"                # this extension's own version; bump on changes
+version = "1.3.0"                # this extension's own version; bump on changes
 
 # WHY THE FLOOR IS 2.19.0 — it is a claim about what this control plane's own
 # prose relies on, not a note about the version somebody happens to run.
@@ -312,23 +314,35 @@ min_thurbox_version = "2.19.0"
 # Only the standing context ships. The registry, playbooks and run logs stay in
 # the git checkout — they are versioned there, and `repos.generated.yaml` is
 # generated, so shipping a copy would immediately drift.
+#
+# AND WHAT SHIPS IS THE RENDERED COPY, NOT THE TRACKED ONE. `FLEET.md` is the
+# source and carries `@OPERATOR_NAME@` and `@ASSISTANT_NAME@`;
+# `scripts/install-extension.sh` substitutes the two names out of
+# `orchestration/voice.example.conf` (or the gitignored `voice.conf` beside it)
+# and writes `FLEET.rendered.md`, which is gitignored exactly as the rendered
+# manifest is. Rendering to a second file rather than in place is the whole
+# point: an operator who changed what the lead calls them has edited no tracked
+# file, so `scripts/sync-checkout.sh` still has a clean tree to fast-forward.
+#
+# The `substitute` flag below would not have done this. It substitutes `{home}`
+# and nothing else, so the names could never have travelled that way.
 
 [[files]]
-path = "FLEET.md"
+path = "FLEET.rendered.md"
 
-# --- context-file symlinks: surface FLEET.md to each CLI's convention ---------
+# --- context-file symlinks: surface the payload to each CLI's convention ------
 
 [[symlinks]]
 link = "CLAUDE.md"
-target = "FLEET.md"
+target = "FLEET.rendered.md"
 
 [[symlinks]]
 link = "AGENTS.md"
-target = "FLEET.md"
+target = "FLEET.rendered.md"
 
 [[symlinks]]
 link = "GEMINI.md"
-target = "FLEET.md"
+target = "FLEET.rendered.md"
 
 # --- runtime resources: ensured on activate, self-healed if deleted -----------
 #

orchestration/voice.example.conf

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+# The two names the lead's standing context is written around — what it calls
+# you, and what it answers to — and this is the tracked copy of them.
+#
+# COPY IT TO `voice.conf` BESIDE THIS FILE TO CHANGE ANYTHING. That copy is
+# gitignored, the same way `session-glyphs.conf` and `registry/owners.txt` are:
+# what you want to be called is a property of you, not of this repo. The reader
+# falls back to THIS file when it is absent, so the defaults below need no copy
+# at all — and an operator who edited a tracked file instead would hand
+# `scripts/sync-checkout.sh` a dirty tree, which it refuses to fast-forward.
+#
+# WHY IT IS RENDERED AND NOT READ. `FLEET.md` carries `@OPERATOR_NAME@` and
+# `@ASSISTANT_NAME@` — `@`-delimited, because markdown reads `__x__` as bold —
+# and `scripts/install-extension.sh` substitutes these into `FLEET.rendered.md`,
+# the payload the extension actually ships, the same way it substitutes
+# `__LEAD_GLYPH__` into the manifest. The alternative —
+# FLEET.md telling the lead to go and read this file — is a read that happens
+# once and is then forgotten, because the lead freezes its instructions at
+# launch and never reloads them. A name it was never told is a name it invents.
+#
+# SO CHANGING ONE OF THESE NEEDS A RE-INSTALL AND A LEAD RESTART, in that
+# order, and installing is not applying:
+#
+#     ./scripts/install-extension.sh
+#     thurbox-cli session restart '<the lead, from thurbox-cli session list>'
+#
+# `.agents/skills/update-fleet/` owns that sequence and its cost. Until you run
+# it, the running lead goes on using the names it was rendered with.
+#
+# THESE ARE A REGISTER, NOT A COSTUME. FLEET.md's `## How you report` holds the
+# rule and it outranks whatever you put here: the names live in verb choice and
+# terseness, and every accuracy rule in that section outranks both. A name here
+# buys no roleplay, no preamble and no paragraph of theme.
+
+# --- THE NAMES ----------------------------------------------------------------
+#
+# `OPERATOR_NAME`  what the lead calls YOU.
+# `ASSISTANT_NAME` what the lead answers to. The SESSION is still called
+#                  Mission Control — that name is thurbox's, it is what the
+#                  TUI lists and the mailbox addresses, and it is set in
+#                  `extension.toml.in`. This is the name in the prose, which is
+#                  a different thing and free to differ.
+#
+# Plain text, one line each, and no shell metacharacters: the renderer refuses a
+# name carrying a quote, a pipe, a backslash, an `&` or an `@` rather than
+# letting it break the substitution or collide with the other placeholder.
+OPERATOR_NAME=SLAYER
+ASSISTANT_NAME=VEGA