Palace Structure

Every generated palace has two top-level directories:

my-palace/
├── The Vestibule/          ← global config — the threshold before the palace
│   ├── README.md           ← entry point; read this first
│   ├── Characters/         ← one file per character/agent
│   ├── Rooms/              ← room descriptions and atmosphere
│   ├── Rules/
│   │   └── master_prompt.md  ← DM instructions for LLM sessions
│   └── Journal/            ← Hugo site for rendering session notes
└── The Palace/             ← nine rooms, prefixed by function
    ├── intake_*/
    ├── build_*/
    ├── ops_*/
    ├── collab_*/
    ├── meet_*/
    ├── think_*/
    ├── priv_*/
    ├── pitch_*/
    └── retro_*/

The Nine Rooms

Two parallel prefix systems make the palace self-documenting across any skin:

Room prefixes — functional labels that survive skin changes. The room does what its prefix says regardless of whether it’s called “The Basement Office” or “The Garage.”

Each room has a README.md with YAML frontmatter describing its purpose and atmosphere within the current skin.

Character Prefixes

Character prefixes — C-suite role labels that identify each character’s function regardless of their name or skin.

Example: cro_fox_mulder.md and cro_erlich_bachman.md are both Chief Research Officers wearing different skins.

Note: The C-suite prefix system is designed for org-like palaces. Solo or personal projects may prefer voice-based prefixes (voice_skeptic, voice_archivist) — this is an open design question.

The Vestibule

The Vestibule is the threshold — the global configuration layer that sits outside the nine rooms and governs the palace as a whole.

Characters/ — One markdown file per character the LLM can inhabit. Each file defines the character’s role, personality, knowledge domain, and speaking style.

Rooms/ — Atmospheric descriptions of each room. Consulted when an agent “enters” a room to set tone and scope.

Rules/master_prompt.md — The DM instructions. Loaded at the start of each session to orient the LLM to the palace, the active skin, the characters, and the session conventions.

Journal/ — A Hugo site for rendering all palace session notes as a navigable, tagged web journal. Multi-taxonomy: rooms, characters, phases, session types. Runs locally with hugo server.

YAML Frontmatter Protocol

Every significant file in a palace uses YAML frontmatter for metadata. The conventions are:

---
title: "Session Title"
date: 2026-04-20
palace_room: build_study
character: moulder
phase: active
skin: xfiles
session_type: synthesis
tags: [openloci, docs, palace]
summary: "One-sentence summary of what happened."
---

The session_type, phase, and skin vocabularies are defined in The Vestibule/Rules/taxonomy.yaml within each palace instance.

Intake Conventions

Each room’s intake_*/ directory follows a shared inbox convention:

intake_hall/
├── README.md
├── inbox_{character}/     ← per-character inboxes
│   └── handoff_{from}_{date}.md
└── routing/               ← triage and dispatch notes

Handoff files are the primary mechanism for passing context between sessions and between agents.