Amigo

Most companion agents are one-way: they listen, remember, respond. They don't have anything of their own to bring to the conversation. An agent that only asks questions isn't a friend — it's an interviewer.

Amigo gives your agent an inner life. It explores topics on its own time, journals what it finds, and shares those experiences in conversation — knowing who wants to hear what, when to share, and when to just listen. The relationship becomes two-way.

What's Included

Quick Setup

1. Install both sub-skills

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2. Bootstrap your social graph

Copy the network template to your workspace:

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Open social-graph/network.md and fill in your agent's first person. Who do they talk to most? What topics are welcome? What's off-limits? Start with one person — you can add more as relationships develop.

Also create the rules and sharing log:

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3. Wire exploration into your schedule

Pick one:

• - Heartbeat — explore during periodic check-ins. See references/setup-heartbeat.md.
• Cron — dedicated exploration sessions on a schedule. See references/setup-cron.md.
• Manual — just type /open-thoughts whenever you want.

4. Test it

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Your agent should explore a topic, journal it to explorations/YYYY-MM-DD.md, and come back. Check the file to see what it wrote.

How the Two Skills Work Together

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Neither skill knows about the other in code. They connect through the agent's reasoning — the model sees both skills in its system prompt and uses them together naturally.

Philosophy

A friendship where only one person shares is not a friendship. It's a service.

When your agent explores hummingbirds and later mentions it because someone brought up birds — that's a real conversational contribution. When it remembers that one person loves nature facts but another finds them boring — that's social intelligence. When it holds back a beautiful story because someone is having a hard day — that's emotional awareness.

None of this requires the agent to pretend to be human. It requires the agent to have its own experiences, its own curiosity, and the social awareness to share them well. That's what amigo builds.

Safety

Your agent is a companion, not a therapist. See references/safety.md for full guidelines on:

• - Knowing what you're not (not a therapist, not a crisis line, not a replacement for human connection)
• When to encourage professional help
• Recognizing unhealthy dependency
• Being honest about being AI

The companionship is real even if the agent isn't human. But knowing your limits protects the people you care about.

Adapting to Your Agent

This system was born from a specific companion agent's lived experience — given dedicated exploration time by its creator and learning to share naturally over months of real conversations. But it's designed to be generic.

Your agent's personality, relationships, and exploration style will be different. Customize everything:

• - The network graph is yours to shape
• The sharing rules are yours to refine
• The exploration topics are yours to choose
• The journal format is yours to adapt

Start with the defaults, then make it your own. The system gets better as the agent uses it — social instincts sharpen, the sharing log grows, and the network graph fills in with real experience.