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Cipher
Architecture

How Cipher works

Four composable layers, each responsible for one thing. Together they turn ambiguous natural-language intent into auditable, production-grade agent execution.

Intent Layer
Classifies & plans
Action Mesh
Tool registry
Cipher Runtime
Executes & budgets
Audit Log
Records everything
01

Intent Layer

Progressive intent refinement classifies requests into archetypes, retrieves workflow templates, and executes 80% of tasks from curated templates — fast, consistent, auditable. Only complex edge cases reach unconstrained planning.

NLP classificationTemplate matchingClarification threshold
02

Action Mesh

A governed tool registry with a semantic index. Tool selection happens at planning time with bounded context — agents only see tools relevant to their task. Capability tags enforce security policies before any invocation.

Semantic searchCapability tagsPolicy enforcement
03

Cipher Runtime

Execution budgets propagate through the full call tree. Failures are typed events, not caught exceptions. Speculative execution can run candidate plans in parallel — committing the first success.

Execution budgetsTyped failure eventsSpeculative execution
04

Audit Log

Append-only event store with causal correlation IDs threading from intent to final action. Compliance queries work without engineering help. The same data feeds product analytics and model improvement.

Append-only storeCausal correlationCompliance queries