Domain Files

Domain files are the second layer of Arkeus memory. Where kernel files are loaded every session regardless of what you are doing, domain files are loaded only when the conversation enters their domain.

The current domains are family, career, finance, content, system, arkeus, and health. Each lives in a dedicated file with its own facts, decisions, people, and corrections. The family domain knows Janelle's Wednesday patch schedule and Greyson's basketball coach. The career domain knows which recruiters are active and which offers are pending. The finance domain knows the accounts, the subscriptions, the tax framing, and the approval thresholds.

Routing into a domain is keyword-triggered. Mentioning Janelle loads family. Mentioning SKAN loads career. Mentioning COBRA loads finance. The routing table lives in cognition_os.md and is the same table every agent uses. Cross-domain triggers load the council protocol and spawn frame agents instead of firing one domain in isolation.

The reason domains are separate from the kernel is token economics. The full family domain is dense enough that loading it into every session would crowd out everything else. Most of the time it is not needed. When it is needed, it loads fully and the session gets the depth without the ambient cost.

Domain files are A1 or A2 for most edits — agents can propose updates, but Ryan approves changes that affect identity, commitments, or governance. The content inside them carries the full write policy discipline: every fact has a class, every assertion has a source, and promotions from inferred to asserted require confirmation.