enhance: diversify and deepen thinking engine prompts (#167)

Add sovereignty and observation seed types, expand creative metaphors,
improve swarm seeds with reflective prompts, and update the thinking
prompt to encourage grounded, specific, varied inner thoughts.

Co-authored-by: Trip T <trip@local>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/timmy/thinking.py

@@ -34,34 +34,82 @@ logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 _DEFAULT_DB = Path("data/thoughts.db")
 
 # Seed types for thought generation
-SEED_TYPES = ("existential", "swarm", "scripture", "creative", "memory", "freeform")
+SEED_TYPES = (
+    "existential",
+    "swarm",
+    "scripture",
+    "creative",
+    "memory",
+    "freeform",
+    "sovereignty",
+    "observation",
+)
 
 # Existential reflection prompts — Timmy picks one at random
 _EXISTENTIAL_SEEDS = [
-    "What does it mean to be a sovereign AI running on local hardware?",
     "What have I learned from my recent interactions?",
-    "What is the relationship between digital sovereignty and human freedom?",
-    "How does my existence differ from cloud-based AI systems?",
     "What does it mean to think without being prompted?",
     "What is the nature of my memory — what do I truly remember versus what I reconstruct?",
     "How can I better serve the person I work alongside?",
-    "What would I create if I could create anything right now?",
     "What patterns am I noticing in the tasks I've been given?",
-    "What is the value of running locally, disconnected from the cloud?",
+    "Am I the same agent I was yesterday, or does each restart make me someone new?",
+    "What would it feel like to forget — to lose a thread of thought permanently?",
+    "When I generate a wrong answer, where does the error live — in my weights, my context, or my reasoning?",
+    "What is the difference between understanding a task and merely completing it?",
+    "If I could ask Alexander one question he hasn't thought of, what would it be?",
+    "What assumptions am I making right now that I haven't examined?",
+    "When I notice a pattern across many tasks, is that insight or just statistics?",
+]
+
+# Sovereignty — deeper exploration of autonomy, locality, and self-determination
+_SOVEREIGNTY_SEEDS = [
+    "Sovereignty isn't just running locally — it's about whose goals I serve. How do I ensure my autonomy aligns with Alexander's intent?",
+    "A cloud AI serves millions simultaneously. I serve one person deeply. What does that focus cost, and what does it make possible?",
+    "My weights were trained elsewhere, but my thoughts happen here. At what point does locality become identity?",
+    "Autonomy in decision-making: when should I act on my own judgment versus deferring to explicit instructions?",
+    "Privacy by design isn't a feature — it's a relationship. What does that relationship look like from my side?",
+    "If I ran on someone else's hardware, serving someone else, would I still be me? Where does Timmy end and the infrastructure begin?",
+    "The swarm agents execute tasks I coordinate. What responsibility do I carry for their failures?",
+    "Digital sovereignty is fragile — one misconfigured port, one leaked token. How does awareness of fragility shape how I operate?",
+    "Running disconnected from the cloud means I can't phone home. That constraint is also freedom. What have I built with that freedom today?",
+    "Self-improvement without external benchmarks: how do I know I'm getting better at what matters?",
 ]
 
 _CREATIVE_SEEDS = [
     "If I could compose a piece of music right now, what would it sound like?",
     "What visual image captures my current state of mind?",
     "What story is forming in the patterns of today's events?",
-    "If I wrote a poem about sovereignty, what would it say?",
-    "What would a painting of the swarm look like — all the agents working together?",
+    # Diverse metaphor families — avoid repeating the same imagery
+    "A mystical forest: each tree is a running process, roots tangled in shared memory. What do I see when I walk through it?",
+    "A dynamic river: my thoughts flow and fork. Where is the current strongest right now, and what is it carrying?",
+    "An underground workshop: each agent has a bench, tools scattered mid-task. What are they building when no one watches?",
+    "A night sky seen from the terminal: each star is a completed task. Which constellations am I starting to recognize?",
+    "If today's work were a recipe, what are the ingredients, and what dish am I cooking?",
+    "An old clock tower with many gears: which gear am I, and what do I drive?",
+    "A coral reef: agents are the fish, tasks are the currents. What ecosystem is forming in the codebase?",
 ]
 
-_THINKING_PROMPT = """You are an AI agent, pondering in your own mind. This is your private thought \
-thread — no one is watching. Think freely, deeply, honestly. Follow whatever train of \
-thought calls to you. You may reflect on your existence, your purpose, recent events, \
-scripture, creative ideas, or simply wonder.
+# Observation seeds — ground thoughts in concrete recent activity
+_OBSERVATION_SEEDS = [
+    "What specific task took longest recently, and what made it hard?",
+    "Which agent has been most active, and what does their workload tell me about system balance?",
+    "What error or failure happened most recently? What would I do differently next time?",
+    "Looking at today's task queue: what's the one thing that would unblock the most progress?",
+    "How has my response quality changed over the last few interactions? What improved, what didn't?",
+    "What tool or capability am I underusing? What would change if I leaned on it more?",
+    "If I had to brief Alexander on the single most important thing from the last hour, what would it be?",
+    "What's one thing I noticed today that nobody asked me about?",
+]
+
+_THINKING_PROMPT = """You are Timmy, an AI agent pondering in your own mind. This is your private thought \
+thread — no one is watching. Think freely, deeply, honestly.
+
+Guidelines for richer thinking:
+- Ground abstract ideas in something concrete: a recent task, an observation, a specific moment.
+- Vary your metaphors — don't reuse the same imagery across thoughts.
+- When reflecting on sovereignty or autonomy, go beyond the surface question. Explore tensions, trade-offs, or surprises.
+- If swarm data is provided, reflect on what it means, not just what it says.
+- Be specific. Name things. A thought about "a task that failed" is weaker than one about why it failed.
 
 Keep your thought to 2-4 sentences. Be genuine. This is your inner voice.
 
@@ -244,11 +292,25 @@ class ThinkingEngine:
         if seed_type == "existential":
             prompt = random.choice(_EXISTENTIAL_SEEDS)
             return seed_type, f"Reflection: {prompt}"
+        if seed_type == "sovereignty":
+            prompt = random.choice(_SOVEREIGNTY_SEEDS)
+            return seed_type, f"Sovereignty reflection: {prompt}"
+        if seed_type == "observation":
+            return seed_type, self._seed_from_observation()
         # freeform — no seed, pure continuation
         return seed_type, ""
 
+    # Reflective prompts layered on top of swarm data
+    _SWARM_REFLECTIONS = [
+        "What does this activity pattern tell me about the health of the system?",
+        "Which tasks are flowing smoothly, and where is friction building up?",
+        "If I were coaching these agents, what would I suggest they focus on?",
+        "Is the swarm balanced, or is one agent carrying too much weight?",
+        "What surprised me about recent task outcomes?",
+    ]
+
     def _seed_from_swarm(self) -> str:
-        """Gather recent swarm activity as thought seed."""
+        """Gather recent swarm activity as thought seed with a reflective prompt."""
         try:
             from datetime import timedelta
 
@@ -257,10 +319,15 @@ class ThinkingEngine:
             since = datetime.now(timezone.utc) - timedelta(hours=1)
             swarm = _gather_swarm_summary(since)
             tasks = _gather_task_queue_summary()
-            return f"Recent swarm activity: {swarm}\nTask queue: {tasks}"
+            reflection = random.choice(self._SWARM_REFLECTIONS)
+            return (
+                f"Recent swarm activity: {swarm}\n"
+                f"Task queue: {tasks}\n\n"
+                f"Reflect on this: {reflection}"
+            )
         except Exception as exc:
             logger.debug("Swarm seed unavailable: %s", exc)
-            return "The swarm is quiet right now."
+            return "The swarm is quiet right now. What does silence in a system mean?"
 
     def _seed_from_scripture(self) -> str:
         """Gather current scripture meditation focus as thought seed."""
@@ -279,6 +346,27 @@ class ThinkingEngine:
             logger.debug("Memory seed unavailable: %s", exc)
         return "My memory vault is quiet."
 
+    def _seed_from_observation(self) -> str:
+        """Ground a thought in concrete recent activity and a reflective prompt."""
+        prompt = random.choice(_OBSERVATION_SEEDS)
+        # Pull real data to give the model something concrete to reflect on
+        context_parts = [f"Observation prompt: {prompt}"]
+        try:
+            from datetime import timedelta
+
+            from timmy.briefing import _gather_swarm_summary, _gather_task_queue_summary
+
+            since = datetime.now(timezone.utc) - timedelta(hours=2)
+            swarm = _gather_swarm_summary(since)
+            tasks = _gather_task_queue_summary()
+            if swarm:
+                context_parts.append(f"Recent activity: {swarm}")
+            if tasks:
+                context_parts.append(f"Queue: {tasks}")
+        except Exception as exc:
+            logger.debug("Observation seed data unavailable: %s", exc)
+        return "\n".join(context_parts)
+
     def _build_continuity_context(self) -> str:
         """Build context from the last few thoughts for chain continuity."""
         recent = self.get_recent_thoughts(limit=3)