{
  "handle": "Stigmergy",
  "mechanism": "Agents MARK a shared environment with structured {{trace}}s instead of sending direct messages. Other agents SENSE traces and respond. Coordination emerges from accumulated trace patterns without any agent-to-agent communication. Persistence is either {{decay}} with reinforcement, or versioning — the scheme is declared, not assumed.",
  "gloss": "Indirect coordination via environment modification (Ant Colony)",
  "invariants": [
    "Persistence scheme is declared: either {{decay}} with reinforcement, or versioning.",
    "Locality: sensing is local to the agent's position.",
    "No direct channel: coordination passes through the environment, never agent to agent."
  ],
  "_meta": {
    "tier": 1,
    "related": [
      "sema:GhostTrail#mh:SHA-256:ec5b2ca0ee009f2aec90a8fb2cec9ee5feb29a1d98f20a7211d973b26a629e6a",
      "sema:Signal#mh:SHA-256:30401098f53ba595e7f0c0e12b7b233d27cf170436a98f9f153016b7e5db9aa6"
    ],
    "ring": 0,
    "supersedes": [
      "sema:Stigmergy#mh:SHA-256:f624f79cc3860686d0278c28c17cfd0e746d8fb2300fa9590ba90f134fee82ed",
      "sema:Stigmergy#mh:SHA-256:628247a1fb4949ebc39836a911d14d0ea963da9cead204c76039ff7339f004af",
      "sema:Stigmergy#mh:SHA-256:f4336a6aa0e65a271e259d979bc6d5ad84312f6ba85f1262d61504730ed5a1a8"
    ],
    "path": [
      "Society",
      "Protocols"
    ]
  },
  "sema_id": "sema:Stigmergy#mh:SHA-256:dd4f5a60a12b6dbe6e4a9a051189088dc0a73ef18b5ef4d9ecc361215e9551cb",
  "sema_ref": "Stigmergy#dd4f",
  "sema_stub": "dd4f",
  "failure_modes": [
    "Trace pollution: too many traces, and the signal is lost among them.",
    "Namespace collision: unrelated agents mark the same medium and read each other's traces as their own.",
    "Semantic ambiguity: agents interpret the same trace differently.",
    "Persistence mismatch: traces fade before they coordinate, or persist after they mislead.",
    "Unattributable trace: a mark cannot be tied to whoever left it."
  ],
  "dependencies": {
    "references": {
      "decay": "sema:Decay#mh:SHA-256:482b97f7196f35c8c50be1b2537ec6e04410a4920fcd8409bec735db3278737a",
      "trace": "sema:Trace#mh:SHA-256:b68d64423aa72b13a06714aa182baab79eb49a5a856dce56dd554fd63b41c2a9"
    }
  },
  "sema_layer": "Society",
  "sema_category": "Protocols",
  "used_by": {
    "references": {
      "Gardener": "sema:Gardener#mh:SHA-256:e8445560044682eee75897f1a7067bac7adb5d09ab457bdffdb747d685e51fb4",
      "HypothesisEngine": "sema:HypothesisEngine#mh:SHA-256:f9e8f765ed6e5bca5355567747f7ea9acf4c9836a8f287df8831a9e18c179e3e"
    }
  }
}