Continuous Learning v2.1 - Instinct

-Based Architecture

An advanced learning system that turns your Claude Code sessions into reusable knowledge through atomic "instincts" - small learned behaviors with confidence scoring.

v2.1 adds project-scoped instincts — React patterns stay in your React project, Python conventions stay in your Python project, and universal patterns (like "always validate input") are shared globally.

When to Activate

• Setting up automatic learning from Claude Code sessions
• Configuring instinct-based behavior extraction via hooks
• Tuning confidence thresholds for learned behaviors
• Reviewing, exporting, or importing instinct libraries
• Evolving instincts into full skills, commands, or agents
• Managing project-scoped vs global instincts
• Promoting instincts from project to global scope

What's New in v2.1

Feature	v2.0	v2.1
Storage	Global (~/.claude/homunculus/)	Project-scoped (${XDG_DATA_HOME:-~/.local/share}/ecc-homunculus/projects/<hash>/)
Scope	All instincts apply everywhere	Project-scoped + global
Detection	None	git remote URL / repo path
Promotion	N/A	Project → global when seen in 2+ projects
Commands	4 (status/evolve/export/import)	6 (+promote/projects)
Cross-project	Contamination risk	Isolated by default

What's New in v2 (vs v1)

Feature	v1	v2
Observation	Stop hook (session end)	PreToolUse/PostToolUse (100% reliable)
Analysis	Main context	Background agent (Haiku)
Granularity	Full skills	Atomic "instincts"
Confidence	None	0.3-0.9 weighted
Evolution	Direct to skill	Instincts -> cluster -> skill/command/agent
Sharing	None	Export/import instincts

The Instinct Model

An instinct is a small learned behavior:

---
id: prefer-functional-style
trigger: "when writing new functions"
confidence: 0.7
domain: "code-style"
source: "session-observation"
scope: project
project_id: "a1b2c3d4e5f6"
project_name: "my-react-app"
---

# Prefer Functional Style

## Action
Use functional patterns over classes when appropriate.

## Evidence
- Observed 5 instances of functional pattern preference
- User corrected class-based approach to functional on 2025-01-15

Properties:

• Atomic -- one trigger, one action
• Confidence-weighted -- 0.3 = tentative, 0.9 = near certain
• Domain-tagged -- code-style, testing, git, debugging, workflow, etc.
• Evidence-backed -- tracks what observations created it
• Scope-aware -- project (default) or global

How It Works

Session Activity (in a git repo)
      |
      | Hooks capture prompts + tool use (100% reliable)
      | + detect project context (git remote / repo path)
      v
+---------------------------------------------+
|  projects/<project-hash>/observations.jsonl  |
|   (prompts, tool calls, outcomes, project)   |
+---------------------------------------------+
      |
      | Observer agent reads (background, Haiku)
      v
+---------------------------------------------+
|          PATTERN DETECTION                   |
|   * User corrections -> instinct             |
|   * Error resolutions -> instinct            |
|   * Repeated workflows -> instinct           |
|   * Scope decision: project or global?       |
+---------------------------------------------+
      |
      | Creates/updates
      v
+---------------------------------------------+
|  projects/<project-hash>/instincts/personal/ |
|   * prefer-functional.yaml (0.7) [project]   |
|   * use-react-hooks.yaml (0.9) [project]     |
+---------------------------------------------+
|  instincts/personal/  (GLOBAL)               |
|   * always-validate-input.yaml (0.85) [global]|
|   * grep-before-edit.yaml (0.6) [global]     |
+---------------------------------------------+
      |
      | /evolve clusters + /promote
      v
+---------------------------------------------+
|  projects/<hash>/evolved/ (project-scoped)   |
|  evolved/ (global)                           |
|   * commands/new-feature.md                  |
|   * skills/testing-workflow.md               |
|   * agents/refactor-specialist.md            |
+---------------------------------------------+

Project Detection

The system automatically detects your current project:

1. CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR env var (highest priority) -- honored as an explicit override even when the directory is not a git repo (hashed by its absolute path)
2. git remote get-url origin -- hashed to create a portable project ID (same repo on different machines gets the same ID)
3. git rev-parse --show-toplevel -- fallback using repo path (machine-specific)
4. Global fallback -- if no project is detected, instincts go to global scope

Each project gets a 12-character hash ID (e.g., a1b2c3d4e5f6). A registry file at ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-~/.local/share}/ecc-homunculus/projects.json maps IDs to human-readable names.

Data Directory

Continuous-learning-v2 stores observer data outside ~/.claude so Claude Code's sensitive-path guard does not block background instinct writes:

1. CLV2_HOMUNCULUS_DIR when set to an absolute path
2. $XDG_DATA_HOME/ecc-homunculus
3. $HOME/.local/share/ecc-homunculus

Existing users with data at ~/.claude/homunculus can migrate once:

bash skills/continuous-learning-v2/scripts/migrate-homunculus.sh

Quick Start

1. Enable Observation Hooks

If installed as a plugin (recommended):

No extra settings.json hook block is required. Claude Code v2.1+ auto-loads the plugin hooks/hooks.json, and observe.sh is already registered there.

If you previously copied observe.sh into ~/.claude/settings.json, remove that duplicate PreToolUse / PostToolUse block. Duplicating the plugin hook causes double execution and ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} resolution errors because that variable is only available inside plugin-managed hooks/hooks.json entries.

If installed manually to ~/.claude/skills, add this to your ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [{
      "matcher": "*",
      "hooks": [{
        "type": "command",
        "command": "~/.claude/skills/continuous-learning-v2/hooks/observe.sh"
      }]
    }],
    "PostToolUse": [{
      "matcher": "*",
      "hooks": [{
        "type": "command",
        "command": "~/.claude/skills/continuous-learning-v2/hooks/observe.sh"
      }]
    }]
  }
}

2. Initialize Directory Structure

The system creates directories automatically on first use, but you can also create them manually:

# Global directories
mkdir -p "${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/ecc-homunculus"/{instincts/{personal,inherited},evolved/{agents,skills,commands},projects}

# Project directories are auto-created when the hook first runs in a git repo

3. Use the Instinct Commands

/instinct-status     # Show learned instincts (project + global)
/evolve              # Cluster related instincts into skills/commands
/instinct-export     # Export instincts to file
/instinct-import     # Import instincts from others
/promote             # Promote project instincts to global scope
/projects            # List all known projects and their instinct counts

Commands

Command	Description
/instinct-status	Show all instincts (project-scoped + global) with confidence
/evolve	Cluster related instincts into skills/commands, suggest promotions
/instinct-export	Export instincts (filterable by scope/domain)
/instinct-import <file>	Import instincts with scope control
/promote [id]	Promote project instincts to global scope
/projects	List all known projects and their instinct counts

Configuration

Edit config.json to control the background observer:

{
  "version": "2.1",
  "observer": {
    "enabled": false,
    "run_interval_minutes": 5,
    "min_observations_to_analyze": 20
  }
}

Key	Default	Description
observer.enabled	false	Enable the background observer agent
observer.run_interval_minutes	5	How often the observer analyzes observations
observer.min_observations_to_analyze	20	Minimum observations before analysis runs

Other behavior (observation capture, instinct thresholds, project scoping, promotion criteria) is configured via code defaults in instinct-cli.py and observe.sh.

Observer platform support

The background observer requires WSL2, Linux, or macOS. On native Windows (Git Bash / MSYS2) it starts and reports success, but the process is killed when the spawning hook exits and its Job Object closes, so no analysis ever runs — setting observer.enabled: true there is effectively a no-op (see issue #2489).

observe.sh detects this on the following hook invocation and writes an explanatory warning to observer-start.log once the observer has failed to survive several times in a row.

Env var	Default	Description
ECC_OBSERVER_NOSURVIVE_WARN_AFTER	3	Consecutive non-survivals before the warning is logged

File Structure

${XDG_DATA_HOME:-~/.local/share}/ecc-homunculus/
+-- identity.json           # Your profile, technical level
+-- projects.json           # Registry: project hash -> name/path/remote
+-- observations.jsonl      # Global observations (fallback)
+-- instincts/
|   +-- personal/           # Global auto-learned instincts
|   +-- inherited/          # Global imported instincts
+-- evolved/
|   +-- agents/             # Global generated agents
|   +-- skills/             # Global generated skills
|   +-- commands/           # Global generated commands
+-- projects/
    +-- a1b2c3d4e5f6/       # Project hash (from git remote URL)
    |   +-- project.json    # Per-project metadata mirror (id/name/root/remote)
    |   +-- observations.jsonl
    |   +-- observations.archive/
    |   +-- instincts/
    |   |   +-- personal/   # Project-specific auto-learned
    |   |   +-- inherited/  # Project-specific imported
    |   +-- evolved/
    |       +-- skills/
    |       +-- commands/
    |       +-- agents/
    +-- f6e5d4c3b2a1/       # Another project
        +-- ...

Scope Decision Guide

Pattern Type	Scope	Examples
Language/framework conventions	project	"Use React hooks", "Follow Django REST patterns"
File structure preferences	project	"Tests in __tests__/", "Components in src/components/"
Code style	project	"Use functional style", "Prefer dataclasses"
Error handling strategies	project	"Use Result type for errors"
Security practices	global	"Validate user input", "Sanitize SQL"
General best practices	global	"Write tests first", "Always handle errors"
Tool workflow preferences	global	"Grep before Edit", "Read before Write"
Git practices	global	"Conventional commits", "Small focused commits"

Instinct Promotion (Project -> Global)

When the same instinct appears in multiple projects with high confidence, it's a candidate for promotion to global scope.

Auto-promotion criteria:

• Same instinct ID in 2+ projects
• Average confidence >= 0.8

How to promote:

# Promote a specific instinct
python3 instinct-cli.py promote prefer-explicit-errors

# Auto-promote all qualifying instincts
python3 instinct-cli.py promote

# Preview without changes
python3 instinct-cli.py promote --dry-run

The /evolve command also suggests promotion candidates.

Confidence Scoring

Confidence evolves over time:

Score	Meaning	Behavior
0.3	Tentative	Suggested but not enforced
0.5	Moderate	Applied when relevant
0.7	Strong	Auto-approved for application
0.9	Near-certain	Core behavior

Confidence increases when:

• Pattern is repeatedly observed
• User doesn't correct the suggested behavior
• Similar instincts from other sources agree

Confidence decreases when:

• User explicitly corrects the behavior
• Pattern isn't observed for extended periods
• Contradicting evidence appears

Why Hooks vs Skills for Observation?

"v1 relied on skills to observe. Skills are probabilistic -- they fire ~50-80% of the time based on Claude's judgment."

Hooks fire 100% of the time, deterministically. This means:

• Every tool call is observed
• No patterns are missed
• Learning is comprehensive

Backward Compatibility

v2.1 is fully compatible with v2.0 and v1:

• Existing global instincts can be migrated from ~/.claude/homunculus/instincts/ with scripts/migrate-homunculus.sh
• Existing ~/.claude/skills/learned/ skills from v1 still work
• Stop hook still runs (but now also feeds into v2)
• Gradual migration: run both in parallel

Privacy

• Observations stay local on your machine
• Project-scoped instincts are isolated per project
• Only instincts (patterns) can be exported — not raw observations
• No actual code or conversation content is shared
• You control what gets exported and promoted

Related

• ECC-Tools GitHub App - Generate instincts from repo history
• Homunculus - Community project that inspired the v2 instinct-based architecture (atomic observations, confidence scoring, instinct evolution pipeline)
• The Longform Guide - Continuous learning section

---

Instinct-based learning: teaching Claude your patterns, one project at a time.