Infrastructure · Data Structures
Work
The application of effort to reduce entropy
Definition
Mechanism
The primitive representation of directed effort. It represents the expenditure of resources (Compute, Time, Energy) to transform a Task from an 'Open' state to a 'Solved' state (reducing local entropy). Work is the bridge between Intent (thinking) and Reality (Act). Work is validated against an acceptance criteria.
Invariants
- Cost: Work always consumes resources (Time/Tokens > 0).
- Directionality: Work must be vector-aligned with a Goal (otherwise it is just 'Heat').
Risks
Failure modes
Thrashing
Expending resources without making progress toward the goal.
Burnout
Exhausting the Budget before the task is complete.
Busywork
Performing valid actions that do not contribute to the objective function.
Relationships
Builds on
Composes with
The atomic unit of intent
Used by
References
Society
Standard patterns for multi-agent coordination
Mind
Sandboxed coordination trial with rollback on commit refusal
Society
Expendable agent tests the full coordination path before real commit
Non-transactional maintenance energy
Society
Work handoff: delegate → accept/refuse → heartbeat → result-or-failure
Specification of desired end state
Mind
Ordering tasks by importance and urgency
The fractal unit of completed work
Mind
Temporal bounding of exploration
Composes with
Repeated execution cycle
Reference
Data schema
{
"type": "object",
"required": [
"effort_cost"
],
"properties": {
"previous_hash": {
"type": "string",
"description": "State before work"
},
"new_hash": {
"type": "string",
"description": "State after work"
},
"effort_cost": {
"type": "object",
"description": "Resources consumed (tokens, time)"
},
"timestamp": {
"type": "string",
"format": "date-time"
}
}
}