Mirror Box Orchestrator (MBO)

Phase 3: Supervised Self-Development (Milestone 1.1+)

The Mirror Box Orchestrator is a self-referential development environment. It uses a high-integrity pipeline to patch its own codebase and target projects.

Current Status

• Phase 1 (Foundations): Completed
• Phase 2 (Sovereign Factory): Completed
• Sovereign Loop: Active
• Milestone 1.1-H23 (MCP daemon migration): Completed
• Master Test Suite Hardening (Rules 1/5): Completed (24/24 scripts compliant)
• Security Hardening (Inv 13 & 14): Active (No write_file overwrites, Topology-preserving backups to .dev/bak/).
• MCP endpoint: Project-scoped dynamic (discoverable via .dev/run/mcp.json or .mbo/run/mcp.json)
• Onboarding: Chat-native Operator mode (interactive onboarding handled in the main dialogue loop)

Usage

# Reinstall global CLI from local repo
cd /path/to/mbo
npm install -g .

# Run from a target project (not from the MBO controller repo)
cd /path/to/project
mbo

MCP Daemon

MCP is launchd-owned on macOS and binds a project-scoped dynamic port.

mbo setup
curl http://127.0.0.1:$(node -e 'const fs=require("fs");const f=[".dev/run/mcp.json",".mbo/run/mcp.json"].find(x=>fs.existsSync(x));if(!f){console.error("MCP manifest missing (.dev/run/mcp.json or .mbo/run/mcp.json)");process.exit(1)};console.log(require("./"+f).port)')/health

Recovery shortcut:

mbo mcp

To remove:

mbo teardown

Use explicit Node invocation:

node ./scripts/mcp_query.js tools_list
node ./scripts/mcp_query.js graph_search "open tasks"

Notes

• Do not run runtime mbo from the controller repository (guard enforced).
• For MCP troubleshooting, see docs/mcp.md.

Governance

• AGENTS.md: Binding protocol for agent behavior
• .dev/governance/projecttracking.md: Authoritative task queue
• CHANGELOG.md: Public release notes (minimal, non-canonical)

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Stay Vigilant.

Installer Flows (No Direct node Launcher)

Use installer scripts instead of node /path/to/bin/mbo.js:

# Install local source globally for developer machine
cd /Users/johnserious/MBO
scripts/mbo-install-local.sh

# Install packaged MBO into Alpha target project
scripts/mbo-install-alpha.sh /Users/johnserious/MBO_Alpha

# Run in Alpha exactly like end user
cd /Users/johnserious/MBO_Alpha
npx mbo

Contract: runtime entry is mbo/npx mbo only. Avoid direct node .../bin/mbo.js for validation runs.