Operator Beliefs
Seed your knowledge graph with starting knowledge that directs dreams, exploration, and hypothesis generation.
What Are Operator Beliefs?
Operator beliefs are manually injected statements that serve as ground truth for your ANIMA instance. They are marked with operator_anchored=1 in the database, which gives them special status:
- Protected from decay. Confidence never erodes during consolidation.
- Bypass triage. They skip quality gates and go directly into the belief graph.
- Seed dreams. The dream engine uses them as high-confidence anchors when synthesizing new knowledge.
- Direct exploration. Curiosity gaps and hypothesis generation orient around operator beliefs.
Critical. Operator beliefs are not recoverable from corpus or logs. Always back them up before wiping a database: SELECT id, statement, confidence FROM beliefs WHERE operator_anchored=1
Why They Matter
Without operator beliefs, ANIMA starts cold. The autonomous loop will ingest corpus, dream, and generate hypotheses from whatever happens to be in the graph. Operator beliefs give the system a compass:
- They express what you care about and what direction to explore.
- Dreams synthesize connections that pass through operator anchors, producing higher-quality output.
- Hypothesis generation focuses on areas where operator beliefs intersect with corpus evidence.
How to Inject
Via HTTP API
POST an array of belief statements to your plugin's operator-beliefs endpoint:
curl -X POST http://localhost:8900/research/operator-beliefs \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"beliefs": [
"The primary mechanism of interest involves feedback loops between system A and system B",
"Resistance to intervention X may be mediated by pathway Y",
"Cross-domain interactions between category_1 and category_2 are underexplored"
]
}'Via Dashboard
Open the plugin dashboard and use the Inject Beliefs button. Enter one statement per line. The dashboard calls the same API endpoint.
Best Practices
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Express curiosity direction: "The relationship between X and Y is poorly understood" | State bare facts: "X exists" |
| Seed 15–25 beliefs for a new corpus | Inject hundreds — the system will extract those from documents |
| Inject before starting the autonomous loop | Inject mid-run — the system may have already dreamed without them |
| Include cross-domain hypotheses you want explored | Duplicate what the corpus already says verbatim |
| Use specific, mechanistic language | Use vague statements like "This topic is important" |
Injection Order
When setting up a new ANIMA instance with a plugin:
- Start ANIMA (
./anima start) - Inject operator beliefs via the dashboard or API
- Start the plugin's autonomous loop from its dashboard
The loop will then ingest corpus, dream, and generate hypotheses with your operator beliefs already anchored in the graph.