Entity State & Attention

Where Memory holds what the entity knows, State holds what it is doing. It is a single, always-current picture that travels with the entity into every conversation, so picking up a thread days later does not start from zero.

State has four parts:

• Focus — the one thing the entity is working on. It stays until the work is finished or explicitly changed.
• Situation — the circumstances around that work: what is blocking it, who is waiting, what happens next.
• Stance — how the entity intends to behave for now, e.g. "Be brief and factual — Ivan is under time pressure this week."
• Attention — up to 5 items the entity is actively keeping in mind.

Examples:

• Focus — "Reconciling the August supplier invoices for Pileto Ltd."
• Situation — "Waiting for Kalina to confirm two disputed lines before the batch can be posted."
• Stance — "Confirm every number against the source document."
• Attention — "Retry the failed import batch on Monday", "Ivan asked for a summary before the board meeting".

Attention discipline

Attention is deliberately small. Before adding a sixth item, the entity reviews what is already there: it drops what is obsolete, merges overlapping items, or replaces the least important one. If something still matters but no longer deserves active attention, it is written into Memory first, so nothing valuable is lost when it leaves the list.

Attention items can be linked to a person and to the conversation they came from, which lets the entity return to the right place when it picks the item up again.

Managing state yourself

The Entity → State panel shows the current focus, situation and stance, and the attention list. The owner can edit the three text fields and remove attention items directly — useful for resetting an entity that has drifted onto the wrong thing.