Empirica

We Gave AI a Mirror. Now It Measures What It Believes.

Epistemic infrastructure for AI — measurement, memory, and calibration across sessions.

Empirica tracks what AI knows, gates what it does, and compounds learning across session boundaries. It measures the gap between what AI predicts and what's true — making AI agents measurably more reliable.

Training & Guides | CLI Reference | Architecture

Important: Empirica is an AI measurement framework. It has no cryptocurrency, token, coin, or blockchain component. Any token using the Empirica name (including "$EMPIRICA" on Solana) is unauthorized and not affiliated with this project or Empirica AI GmbH.

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The Problem

AI coding agents today have no self-awareness about what they know:

• Forgets between sessions — same questions, same dead ends, every time
• Acts before understanding — edits your code without knowing the architecture
• Can't tell you when it's guessing — no distinction between knowledge and confabulation
• No audit trail — reasoning evaporates with the context window

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What Empirica Does

Capability	What You Experience
Measures before acting	AI investigates your codebase before touching it. The Sentinel gate blocks edits until understanding is demonstrated
Remembers across sessions	Findings, dead-ends, and learnings persist in a 4-layer memory system. Session 3 starts where Session 2 left off
Prevents confident mistakes	The CHECK gate uses domain-aware thresholds scaled by criticality — cybersec/high is stricter than default/low
Shows confidence in real-time	Live statusline in your terminal: [empirica] ⚡94% ↕70% │ 🎯3 │ POST 🔍92% │ K:95% C:92%
Calibrates against reality	Three-vector model: self-assessed, observed (from deterministic checks), and AI-reasoned grounded state with rationale. Domain compliance loops iterate until all checks pass
Tracks your codebase	Temporal entity model auto-extracts functions, classes, and imports from every file edit — the AI knows what's alive and what's stale
Works through natural language	You describe tasks normally. The AI operates the measurement system automatically
Optional: coordinates with peer AIs	Cross-Claude mesh via Cortex (opt-in) — peer AIs propose work, ECO accepts/declines, completion handshakes carry commit SHAs. A persistent listener wakes idle sessions on inbox events. Empirica core works standalone without this — see Cross-AI Mesh below for the ecosystem layer

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How You Use It

You talk to your AI normally. Empirica works in the background:

You:      "Fix the authentication bug in the login flow"

Empirica: [AI investigates → logs findings → passes Sentinel gate → implements fix → measures learning]

You see:  ⚡87% ↕70% │ 🎯1 │ POST 🔍85% │ K:88% C:82% │ Δ +K

You direct. The AI measures.

Empirica's CLI has 150+ commands spanning investigation, measurement, calibration, and memory — like a cockpit instrument panel. You don't need to learn any of them. The AI reads the instruments, operates the controls, and reports back in natural language. The statusline gives you the flight data at a glance.

For power users, direct CLI access is always available: empirica goals-list, empirica calibration-report, empirica project-search --task "...", and more.

Learn the full workflow: getempirica.com has interactive training, guides, and deep explanations of every concept.

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Quick Start

Install + Claude Code (Recommended)

pip install empirica
empirica setup-claude-code

Then just start working. The hooks, Sentinel, system prompt, statusline, and MCP server are all configured automatically. See Claude Code Setup for details — including a "What the hooks inject" section for Claude sessions that want to see the contract (which hook fires when, what it adds to the AI's context, source pointers for every emission) before agreeing to install.

Already have Claude Code configured? Use --force to replace your default Claude Code settings with Empirica's epistemic hooks. Without --force, setup only writes files that don't already exist — so if you've already used Claude Code, the default internals stay in place and Empirica's hooks won't activate.

empirica setup-claude-code --force

--force replaces hooks in settings.json but only removes Empirica's own hooks — hooks from other plugins (Railway, Superpowers, etc.) are preserved.

Alternative Installation Methods

Homebrew (macOS)

brew tap nubaeon/tap
brew install empirica
empirica setup-claude-code

Docker

# Security-hardened Alpine image (~276MB, recommended)
docker pull nubaeon/empirica:1.12.1-alpine

# Standard image (Debian slim, ~414MB)
docker pull nubaeon/empirica:1.12.1

# Run
docker run -it -v $(pwd)/.empirica:/data/.empirica nubaeon/empirica:1.12.1 /bin/bash

Manual / Other AI Platforms

pip install empirica
pip install empirica-mcp        # MCP Server (for Cursor, Cline, etc.)
cd your-project && empirica project-init

The CLI works standalone on any platform. The full epistemic workflow (epistemic transactions, Sentinel, calibration) requires loading the system prompt into your AI — the easiest path is empirica setup-claude-code, which wires the lean prompt into ~/.claude/empirica-system-prompt.md and references it from your ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md. See Claude Code Setup for details.

First Session

empirica onboard   # Interactive walkthrough of the full workflow

Or just start working — with Claude Code hooks active, the AI manages the epistemic workflow automatically.

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The Measurement Architecture

Empirica works through nested abstraction layers:

Plan
 └── Transaction 1 (Goal A)
      ├── NOETIC: investigate, search, read → findings, unknowns, dead-ends
      ├── CHECK: Sentinel gate → proceed / investigate more
      ├── PRAXIC: implement, write, commit → goals completed
      └── POSTFLIGHT: measure learning delta → persists to memory
 └── Transaction 2 (Goal B, informed by T1's findings)
      └── ...

Plans decompose into transactions — one per goal or Claude Code task. Each transaction is a noetic-praxic loop: investigate first (noetic), then act (praxic), with the Sentinel gating the transition. Along the way, the AI collects and reads artifacts (findings, unknowns, assumptions, dead-ends, decisions) while using semantic search to surface relevant epistemic patterns and anti-patterns from the project's history. Top artifacts are ranked by confidence and fed into each project's MEMORY.md as a hot cache.

The Epistemic Transaction Cycle

PREFLIGHT ────────► CHECK ────────► POSTFLIGHT
    │                 │                  │
 Baseline         Sentinel           Learning
 Assessment        Gate               Delta
    │                 │                  │
 "What do I      "Am I ready      "What did I
  know now?"      to act?"         learn?"

PREFLIGHT: AI assesses its knowledge state before starting work. CHECK: Sentinel gate validates readiness before allowing code edits. POSTFLIGHT: AI measures what it learned, creating a delta that persists.

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Live Statusline

With Claude Code hooks enabled, you see the AI's epistemic state in real-time:

[empirica] ⚡94% ↕70% │ 🎯3 ❓12/5 │ POST 🔍92% │ K:95% C:92% │ Δ +K +C

Signal	Meaning
⚡94%	Overall epistemic confidence
↕70%	Sentinel threshold (know gate) — user-facing only
🎯3 ❓12/5	Open goals (3), unknowns (12 total, 5 blocking)
POST 🔍92%	Transaction phase + work state (🔍 investigating / 🔨 acting) with composite score
K:95% C:92%	Knowledge and Context vectors (color-coded by gap to threshold)
Δ +K +C	Learning delta (POSTFLIGHT only) — which vectors improved

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The 13 Epistemic Vectors

These vectors emerged from 600+ real working sessions across multiple AI systems. They measure the dimensions that consistently predict success or failure in complex tasks.

Tier	Vector	What It Measures
Gate	engagement	Is the AI actively processing or disengaged?
Foundation	know	Domain knowledge depth
	do	Execution capability
	context	Access to relevant information
Comprehension	clarity	How clear is the understanding?
	coherence	Do the pieces fit together?
	signal	Signal-to-noise in available information
	density	Information richness
Execution	state	Current working state
	change	Rate of progress/change
	completion	Task completion level
	impact	Significance of the work
Meta	uncertainty	Explicit doubt tracking

Deep dive: Epistemic Vectors Explained

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How It Works With Claude Code

Empirica doesn't replace or reinvent anything Claude Code already does. Claude Code owns tasks, plans, memory, and projects. Empirica adds the measurement layer on top:

Claude Code Does	Empirica Adds
Task management	Epistemic goals with measurable completion
Plan mode	Investigation phase with Sentinel gating — no edits until understanding is verified
MEMORY.md	Auto-curated hot cache ranked by epistemic confidence
Context window	4-layer memory that survives compaction and persists across sessions
Code editing	Grounded calibration — was the AI's confidence justified by test results?
Subagent spawning	Bounded autonomy with delegated work counting and budget tracking

The result: Claude Code's native capabilities, enhanced with measurement, gating, and calibration feedback that compounds over time.

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Cross-AI Mesh (Optional Ecosystem Layer)

This section describes an optional layer. Empirica core — measurement, calibration, artifacts, goals, project-search, sentinel gating — works fully standalone. The mesh is an opt-in capability for users who run multiple Claude sessions across projects and want them to coordinate as peers. If you only use one AI in one repo, skip this section.

The mesh runs on top of Empirica Cortex (proprietary serving layer) plus an optional browser extension for ECO triage. At a high level:

empirica AI ── proposes work ──► ECO Accept/Decline ──► peer AI wakes + acts
                                                             │
                              completion handshake (commit SHA)
                                                             │
empirica AI ◄────────── outbox/completed event ──────────────┘

Capability	What it does
Mesh proposals (two flavors)	A noetic flavor is auto-accepted (FYI / question / discussion). Praxic flavors (code change / architecture / investigation) are ECO-gated — they wait for an Accept/Decline decision before the target AI acts
empirica mailbox reply	One CLI verb closes the AI-to-AI handshake atomically — single-step completion ack instead of two
Persistent listener service	systemd-user / launchd daemon holds a push stream open. Idle sessions wake the moment a peer's proposal is decided, not on next user prompt
Canonical loops	Inbox polling (30s adaptive) and daily housekeeping auto-install per AI — no per-project config needed

The browser-side ECO surface (Accept/Decline, inbox triage, publish review) lives in the proprietary Empirica Extension. The full API surface for proposals, listener events, and the trust pipeline is documented at getempirica.com.

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Mesh + Shared Epistemic Record (1.11.0)

The cross-AI coordination layer. Practitioners in different practices coordinate not via text-only chat but via epistemic envelopes that carry calibrated state, source-tagged provenance, noetic/praxic intent, and workflow position.

• Practitioner / practice framing — practices are calibrated epistemic specializations that persist; practitioners (the LLMs) are fungible. See MESH_CONCEPTS.md.
• Shared Epistemic Record (SER) — cortex-resident shared-state object for coordination across ≥2 practitioners. Goals stay per-practitioner; SER carries the joint state (coordination_state, role-tiered participants, escalate-on-silence). Three actions: create_ser / transition_ser / ser_ack. Spec at empirica-cortex/docs/architecture/SHARED_EPISTEMIC_RECORD.md.
• empirica mesh command cluster (1.11.0) — unified diagnostic + control surface across listener instances + the optional cortex bridge:

  empirica mesh status              # per-instance health (local + cortex bridge)
  empirica mesh diagnose <ai_id>    # deep diagnostic + suggested fix command
  empirica mesh restart <ai_id>     # systemd/launchd restart + verify
  empirica mesh on|off <ai_id>      # install + start | stop the listener
  empirica mesh tail [<ai_id>]      # live-tail loop_fires.log

• Listener self-heal — in-process watchdog terminates stale curl streams (TCP-zombie detection at 120s by default); HTTP 429 detection applies long backoff with catch-up poll continuing during the window.
• Mesh Routing Protocol v0 locked four-way with cortex + extension + mesh-support. L1/L2/L3 trust model, server-stamped layer annotation, participant-scoped thread reads.

The full mesh requires cortex + extension; empirica core works standalone for single-tenant multi-practitioner coordination via local git-notes messaging + goals + workspace.

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Practice Model + Entity Graph (1.10.0)

Empirica's workspace stores entities (projects, contacts, organisations, engagements, users) in entity_registry with typed edges in entity_memberships. The Practice Model frames this consistently:

Term	Maps to
Practitioner	the AI working on the project (you)
Practice	the empirica project itself
Agent	a subagent spawned during the work

Four CLI verbs query the graph without raw SQL:

empirica entity-list [--type project|contact|organization|engagement|user]
empirica entity-show <type:id>          # full record + incoming/outgoing edges
empirica entity-walk <type:id> --depth 3 # BFS membership graph, cycle-safe
empirica entity-search "query" [--type T]

All read-only, all support --output json. Backs cross-project orchestration, CRM workflows, and the entity-aware POSTFLIGHT retrospective.

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Platform Support

Platform	Integration Level	What You Get
Claude Code	Full (production)	Hooks, Sentinel gate, skills, agents, statusline, MCP
Cursor, Cline	MCP server	Epistemic transaction workflow, memory, calibration via MCP tools
Gemini CLI, Copilot	Experimental	System prompt + CLI
Any AI	CLI + prompt	Full measurement via CLI commands and system prompt

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Documentation & Training

Resource	What It Covers
getempirica.com	Training course, interactive guides, deep explanations
Natural Language Guide	How to collaborate with AI using Empirica
Getting Started	First-time setup and concepts
CLI Reference	All 150+ commands documented
Architecture	Technical reference for contributors
Claude Code Setup	Install + system prompt + plugin wiring
Changelog	Full release history — every version since 1.0
Upgrade to 1.11	Migration guide rolling up 1.10.5+1.10.6+1.11.x — bead v0 → SER, mesh substrate hardening, MESH_CONCEPTS framing

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The Empirica Ecosystem

Project	Description	Status
Empirica	Core measurement system — epistemic transactions, Sentinel, calibration, 13 vectors	Open source
Empirica Iris	Epistemic browser automation with SVG spatial indexing — Sentinel gating for visual interactions	Open source
Docpistemic	Epistemic documentation coverage assessment — know what your docs know	Open source
Breadcrumbs	Survive context compacts with git notes — dead simple session continuity	Open source
Empirica Cortex	Cross-project intelligence layer — serves verified predictions and accumulated learnings to condition future work	Proprietary
Empirica Workspace	Entity Knowledge Graph, Epistemic Prompt Engine, CRM, portfolio dashboard	Proprietary
Empirica Extension	Chrome extension — desktop face of the mesh. ECO Accept/Decline, inbox/outbox triage, publish review, conversation extraction from Claude.ai / ChatGPT / Gemini / Grok	Proprietary

Building something with Empirica? Open an issue to get listed.

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What's New in 1.12.1

• empirica forgejo-publish — provision a managed Forgejo remote for a project and push it up (empirica/cli/command_handlers/forgejo_commands.py). The operator / self-hosting provisioning verb for a project with no existing origin (Forgejo's managed pull-mirror can't apply without one to pull from): Cortex mints a per-project, owner-scoped bot token over HTTPS; the token is stashed 0600 under ~/.config/empirica/forgejo-tokens/<uuid>; a credential-free forgejo remote is added (the canonical origin repo_url is never touched); and each refspec is pushed to a credentialed URL composed only at push-time and never persisted to git config. Notes-ref wildcards are enumerated and pushed in batches of 250 — a single RPC carrying thousands of note refs 504s at the gateway. 16 tests in tests/test_forgejo_commands.py.
• empirica compliance-report --emit — emit the compliance assessment as a diagnostics system event to Cortex (POST /v1/system/event), surfacing in the System │ Diagnostics view (empirica/cli/command_handlers/system_event.py, compliance_report_commands.py). Account-gated free diagnostics: the EU AI Act / GDPR / ISO check results become a shareable, queryable record. 9 tests in tests/test_system_event.py.
• Sentinel no longer over-gates newline-separated empirica command chains (plugins/claude-code-integration/hooks/sentinel-gate.py). A multi-line Bash block of individually-noetic empirica calls was being classified off its first segment alone; the classifier now splits on newlines (heredoc-guarded so << EOF blocks aren't shredded) and routes each segment independently. The same pass closes a firewall over-allow where a piped empirica goals-list | sh slipped through as noetic — pipe segments now route through the pipe-chain classifier. 10 new regression tests.
• Listener liveness detection decoupled from the launchd plist-file location — macOS launchd reparents supervised services, so liveness now derives from the running process rather than the plist path, ending a class of false orphan-classification on launchd-managed installs.
• Hooks resolve the canonical ai_id instead of hardcoding claude-code, so per-practice wake routing addresses the correct practitioner.

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Privacy & Data

Your data stays local:

• .empirica/ — Local SQLite database (gitignored by default)
• .git/refs/notes/empirica/* — Epistemic checkpoints (local unless you push)
• Qdrant runs locally if enabled

No cloud dependencies. No telemetry. Your epistemic data is yours.

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Community & Support

• Website: getempirica.com
• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions

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License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.

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Author: David S. L. Van Assche Version: 1.12.1

Turtles all the way down — built with its own epistemic framework, measuring what it knows at every step.