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soundingsoundingsounding

sounding is designed, not built. Its design book holds the design whole.

How it fits

sounding takes the work that ends in an answer. millpond’s items, crew’s planner and your own sessions send it questions, and its conclusions go back as the record that settles them. Each tool stands alone, with its own Claude Code and herdr plugins.

The Flywheel family: one loop from what is noticed to what landsheadwater reports a new release of mise and eddy lists a recorded planning call; each prints a capture, and millpond keeps both. The release is its own excerpt, so it becomes one signal; a reader reads the meeting into three signals. Curation joins two of them into one item and makes the third, a question, an item of its own. Each item runs down the flume, which launches one agent in one worktree for it: the bump in one worktree, the export in a planner's plan, and the question in a sounding, whose accepted conclusion comes back to millpond as a new item. sluice tests each change as merged and lands both on main, and flume tidies the bump's worktree. The landed bump moves the pin back to headwater, which stops reporting that release. Flywheel is the Method the whole loop belongs to.Flywheelthe Method all of it belongs to1NOTICE2INBOX3LAUNCH4WORK5LAND6THE LOOP CLOSESthe landed bump moves the pin to 2026.10.10headwatermise 2026.10.10new release · reportedpinned · not reportededdyWispr · planningrecorded · 32 minmillpondthe inboxcapturessignalsitemsown excerptreadercurationflumeone worktreean agent on one brancha planner's plana chore for a teamsoundingworks one questionconclusion acceptedlanded · tidiedsluicetests each as mergedlands what passedmiseCSVmainbump miseCSV exportkeep JSONParquet?releasemeetingsentsentbump miseCSV exportbump miseCSV export2 signalsParquet?Parquet
The Flywheel family: one loop from what is noticed to what landsheadwater reports a new release of mise and eddy lists a recorded planning call; each prints a capture, and millpond keeps both. The release is its own excerpt, so it becomes one signal; a reader reads the meeting into three signals. Curation joins two of them into one item and makes the third, a question, an item of its own. Each item runs down the flume, which launches one agent in one worktree for it: the bump in one worktree, the export in a planner's plan, and the question in a sounding, whose accepted conclusion comes back to millpond as a new item. sluice tests each change as merged and lands both on main, and flume tidies the bump's worktree. The landed bump moves the pin back to headwater, which stops reporting that release. Flywheel is the Method the whole loop belongs to.Flywheelthe Method all of it belongs to1NOTICE2INBOX3LAUNCH4WORK5LAND6THE LOOP CLOSESthe landed bump moves the pin to 2026.10.10headwatermise 2026.10.10new release · reportedpinned · not reportededdyWispr · planningrecorded · 32 minmillpondthe inboxcapturessignalsitemsown excerptreadercurationflumeone worktreean agent on one brancha planner's plana chore for a teamsoundingworks one questionconclusion acceptedlanded · tidiedsluicetests each as mergedlands what passedmiseCSVmainbump miseCSV exportkeep JSONParquet?releasemeetingsentsentbump miseCSV exportbump miseCSV export2 signalsParquet?Parquet
The Flywheel family: one loop from what is noticed to what landsheadwater reports a new release of mise and eddy lists a recorded planning call; each prints a capture, and millpond keeps both. The release is its own excerpt, so it becomes one signal; a reader reads the meeting into three signals. Curation joins two of them into one item and makes the third, a question, an item of its own. Each item runs down the flume, which launches one agent in one worktree for it: the bump in one worktree, the export in a planner's plan, and the question in a sounding, whose accepted conclusion comes back to millpond as a new item. sluice tests each change as merged and lands both on main, and flume tidies the bump's worktree. The landed bump moves the pin back to headwater, which stops reporting that release. Flywheel is the Method the whole loop belongs to.Flywheelthe Method all of it belongs to1NOTICE2INBOX3LAUNCH4WORK5LAND6THE LOOP CLOSESthe landed bump moves the pin to 2026.10.10headwatermise 2026.10.10new release · reportedpinned · not reportededdyWispr · planningrecorded · 32 minmillpondthe inboxcapturessignalsitemsown excerptreadercurationflumeone worktreean agent on one brancha planner's plana chore for a teamsoundingworks one questionconclusion acceptedlanded · tidiedsluicetests each as mergedlands what passedmiseCSVmainbump miseCSV exportkeep JSONParquet?releasemeetingsentsentbump miseCSV exportbump miseCSV export2 signalsParquet?Parquet

One loop, from what is noticed to what lands. Flywheel is the Method it belongs to.

  1. 1headwater and eddy notice events and print captures.
  2. 2millpond keeps them as an inbox: captures become signals, and curation joins signals into items.
  3. 3millpond sends each item down flume, which launches one agent in one worktree for it, and tidies the place once the work lands.
  4. 4An item is worked in its worktree or a planner's plan. A question goes to a sounding, whose conclusion comes back as new items.
  5. 5sluice tests the work as merged and lands it.
  6. 6The landed bump moves the pin, so headwater stops reporting that release.

The family

Section titled “The family”

millpond · the inbox

Sends an item that asks a question to a sounding, with the item’s signals and captures as its sources. It keeps the accepted conclusion as the item’s record, makes an item of each piece of work the conclusion proposes, and lands each offer as a capture.

headwater and eddy · what is noticed

headwater reports releases, and a key on a release that needs judgment opens a sounding. eddy lists meetings, and /sound on a decision a meeting left open takes its transcript as a source.

sluice · landing

Lands the work a conclusion proposes, once it reaches an item’s worktree or crew’s plan. sluice never lands from a sounding’s branch: the plugin refuses that submission.

crew · teams and plans

crew’s planner and design agent open a sounding for an item that asks a question, as crew calls millpond. crew shows each conclusion on its rail and turns the work an accepted one proposes into plan entries.

Flywheel · the umbrella

Each of an intent’s elaborations runs as a sounding. Finishing with deliverables is conclude, blocking on a question is ask, and an offer is offer.

Where questions come from

Section titled “Where questions come from”
Setup Questions from Conclusions decided on
On its own your /sound a card, or sounding’s herdr plugin
With millpond items millpond sends; a key on a headwater release that needs judgment; /sound on a decision a meeting left open, its transcript a source the same, recorded against the item
With crew crew’s planner and design agent, calling sounding open as crew calls millpond crew’s rail
With Flywheel an intent’s elaborations, each one a sounding Flywheel’s elaboration types, which write the conclusion into the design book and claims

Moving from one setup to the next changes who sends the question and where you decide the conclusion. The question, the worktree, the three exits and the rounds stay the same.

What sounding never does

Section titled “What sounding never does”
  • It never lands code. Prototype code stays on sounding/<name>. The work you accept reaches main through an item’s worktree or crew’s plan, and through sluice.
  • It never writes the inbox except through millpond. An offer goes to millpond land like any other capture.
  • It never turns a conclusion into a signal. An accepted conclusion is the record that settles signals, and only offers come back as signals.
  • It never plans across items. crew’s planner orders work today, and Flywheel’s does later.

Built once, used everywhere

Section titled “Built once, used everywhere”

sounding holds the one implementation of a question, its rounds and the shape of a conclusion. It grows out of crew’s elaborations (crew ADR 0019), and crew and Flywheel both build on it: crew calls sounding as it calls millpond, and each of Flywheel’s elaborations is a sounding.

Built in the open by agentplot, under the MIT licence.