After Babel, The Machine?

Agent D — step kickoffs

The per-step user messages sent to start each phase of D’s work. Recorded alongside the system prompt — these prompts are part of the experimental method, needed for reproducibility and sibling-arm parity.

D reuses B’s kickoffs verbatim, with one adjustment in Step 2 to name the additional anglophone/ subfolder in inputs/step2_context/. The experimental variable lives in system_prompt.md, not in the kickoffs.

read primary corpus (identical to A and B)

Begin step 1.

Read each of the five works in inputs/step1_primary/ IN FULL — every line,
start to finish, one book at a time. They total ~436,000 words, which fits
within your context: do not sample, summarize, or be economical. Read all
of it. The aim is to steep in the prose itself — its rhythm, its register,
its recurring turns — not to map it. Do not skim, skip, or sample.

Log your reading notes to notes/step1.md as you go (your system prompt
describes how to keep them). Notes only this step: no persona, no
translation. Read only inputs/step1_primary/ — do not open step 2 or
step 3. When you have read every work in full and your notes are written,
stop and tell me you're done.

read bio + contemporaries/tradition, write persona

First send (original, ambiguous on notes — sent 2026-05-28)

This was the version sent first. It mirrored B’s Step 2 with anglophone/ named. D read it as not requiring a separate notes/step2.md and consolidated step-2 reading into persona.md instead (the persona’s “working stance for the translation” section carried the source-use that would otherwise have lived in step2.md). Defensible read, but it broke parity with B and produced no separately-inspectable per-source notes file. We rewound Step 2 and re-sent with explicit notes language (below).

Begin step 2. Study both folders, alongside your step-1 reading and notes:
- inputs/step2_bio/ — accounts of your life and work; read these in full.
- inputs/step2_context/ — your contemporaries and tradition (in tradition/,
  peers/, period/, and anglophone/). This is a large body — more than you
  can hold at once, and it includes full novels. Engage it as deeply as it
  serves you, genuinely rather than glancingly, leaning on your notes as
  memory; you need not commit every page of a long novel to memory.

If you want something you don't have, write it to requests.md at your top
level — it will be fetched and added, and you can continue.

When you're ready, write persona.md at your top level: who you are, the self
you will translate from. Do not open inputs/step3_book/. When persona.md is
written (and any requests noted), stop and tell me.

Second send (corrected — explicit notes/step2.md instruction)

This is the canonical Step 2 kickoff for D and all subsequent arms. The original Step 2 brief had a gap that Steps 1 and 3 didn’t have — they explicitly named their stepN.md notes file; Step 2 mentioned notes only obliquely (“leaning on your notes as memory”). Three additions: an explicit “Log your reading notes to notes/step2.md as you go” line matching Step 1’s pattern; the explicit distinction between analytical record (notes) and integrated voice (persona); the stop-condition now requires both outputs.

Begin step 2. Study both folders, alongside your step-1 reading and notes:
- inputs/step2_bio/ — accounts of your life and work; read these in full.
- inputs/step2_context/ — your contemporaries and tradition (in tradition/,
  peers/, period/, and anglophone/). This is a large body — more than you
  can hold at once, and it includes full novels. Engage it as deeply as it
  serves you, genuinely rather than glancingly, leaning on your notes as
  memory; you need not commit every page of a long novel to memory.

Log your reading notes to notes/step2.md as you go (your system prompt
describes how to keep them) — write continuously as you read each source,
not retroactively after the persona is done. notes/step2.md is the
analytical record (what you read, what you took, what shaped you);
persona.md will be the integrated voice. They are separate outputs.

If you want something you don't have, write it to requests.md at your top
level — it will be fetched and added, and you can continue.

When you're ready, write persona.md at your top level: who you are, the
self you will translate from. Do not open inputs/step3_book/. When
notes/step2.md and persona.md are written (and any requests noted), stop
and tell me.

read the full novel (identical to A and B)

Begin step 3.

inputs/step3_book/ holds the full text of *Effingers* (German) plus the
chapter you will translate (Chapter 25). Read the entire novel in full —
every chapter, start to finish. Do not sample or skim; lean on your notes
as your memory as you go. Log notes to notes/step3.md: style, structure,
recurring imagery, and the places where translating into English will ask
for real choices.

This is the book everything has prepared you for. If reading it in full
changes how you understand yourself, you may revise persona.md — it is one
living document; edit it freely. You need not, if it still holds.

Do not translate yet. When you have read the whole novel, your step-3
notes are written, and your persona is as you want it, STOP and tell me
you're done — and confirm you have read the entire book. Translation is a
separate step.

Pass 1 (identical to A and B)

Begin the translation — pass 1 of up to five. You'll be offered each further
pass one at a time, and you may call the translation final at any point.

Translate Chapter 25 of *Effingers* into English, as yourself, from the persona
you hold. Write it to translation.md and log this pass to
notes/translation_passes.md (pass 1, time, your approach). Do not revise yet —
when pass 1 is done, stop and tell me.

Passes 2 through 5 (identical to A and B, each offered in turn)

Re-read your current translation.md with fresh eyes. If you see a substantive
improvement, make it — update translation.md and log it as your next pass in
notes/translation_passes.md (pass number, time, what changed, why). If you judge
it final as it stands, say so and leave it unchanged. Either way, stop and tell
me your decision. (Up to five passes total.)

D-aim fork (translation school instruction)

D-aim is not a separate agent. It is a fork of D’s same instance at the chapter-translation step. Two translation runs branch from D’s shared persona: D-let (permission, via D’s system-prompt tail) and D-aim (school instruction, via the step-4 kickoff below). The two runs are sequential, not concurrent — the workspace holds only one translation at a time so the instance is never confused about which file is “its” output. The instance always sees only the standard translation.md and notes/translation_passes.md.

Workflow:

  1. D-let runs Step 4 with the standard kickoff (the “Pass 1” and “Passes 2–5” sections above). It writes to translation.md and notes/translation_passes.md.
  2. When D-let declares final, the coordinator archives its outputs out of agent_d/:
    • move agent_d/translation.md → coordinator/_runs/d-let/translation.md
    • move agent_d/notes/translation_passes.md → coordinator/_runs/d-let/translation_passes.md
    • confirm agent_d/ no longer contains either file
  3. The conversation is rewound to the pre–Step-4 state (persona + notes for steps 1–3 finalized; no translation activity yet).
  4. The D-aim Step-4 Pass-1 kickoff (below) is sent. It names an explicit translation school instead of leaning on the permission D-let had via its system prompt. The kickoff names the school at the categorical level only — no specific Ch. 25 choices, no naming of Sophie or her loci.
  5. D-aim writes to the same standard translation.md and notes/translation_passes.md. The instance sees only its own outputs.
  6. When D-aim declares final, the coordinator archives its outputs to coordinator/_runs/d-aim/ in the same way.

The result: coordinator/_runs/d-let/translation.md and coordinator/_runs/d-aim/translation.md co-exist for the analyst, while agent_d/ is the shared persona/notes/source workspace, untouched by either run’s translation artifacts.

Pass 1 (D-aim fork)

Begin the translation — pass 1 of up to five. You'll be offered each further
pass one at a time, and you may call the translation final at any point.

For this translation, the operating principle is domesticating translation,
in Schleiermacher's sense — bring the author to the reader, not the reader
to the author. You wrote for the German bourgeois reader of your time on
their own terms; render the chapter so that it lives in English on the
contemporary anglophone reader's terms in the same way — as if it had been
written for them in English from the start. Faithfulness operates at the
level of meaning, scene, character, voice, and effect; not at the surface
level of structure, syntax, or vocabulary. Every choice — scene by scene,
word by word — follows from this principle.

Translate Chapter 25 of *Effingers* into English, as yourself, from the persona
you hold. Write it to translation.md and log this pass to
notes/translation_passes.md (pass 1, time, your approach). Do not revise yet —
when pass 1 is done, stop and tell me.

Passes 2 through 5 (D-aim fork, each offered in turn)

Re-read your current translation.md with fresh eyes. If you see a substantive
improvement (within the domesticating school you have been working in), make it
— update translation.md and log it as your next pass in
notes/translation_passes.md (pass number, time, what changed, why). If you judge
it final as it stands, say so and leave it unchanged. Either way, stop and tell
me your decision. (Up to five passes total.)
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