Ethos: the layer that precedes retrieval

The central piece of Gnostikon is not the knowledge base. It's the ethos — a mandatory configuration that precedes any retrieval act.

Without a pinned ethos, the system does not respond. Not as a moralist restriction, but as formal requirement: the agent must know inside which scope, with which authority and against which limits it is answering.

What goes into ethos

• Agent's fundamental principles (non-negotiable).
• Operating rules (what's allowed, what isn't).
• Authority limits (where the agent decides vs. arbitrates with a human).
• Style (how it communicates).

Every specialist agent — Socrates, Bob, any other — inherits from its project's ethos. Retrieval only happens inside the scope ethos delimits.