> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.linksee.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# declare_anchor

> Record a normative claim the drift detector will check — or park an option the user never addressed

An anchor is a **normative** claim: *we decided X*, *Y is forbidden*, *Z must always hold*. The drift detector later checks anchors against committed reality; the re-injection guard re-surfaces them before an agent acts.

Anchors come **only from explicit declaration** — never from pattern-mining a transcript. If the user made a decision in conversation, the shortest path is [`remember({ content, anchor: {} })`](/tools/remember), which stores the memory and declares the anchor in one call. Use `declare_anchor` directly when you need the full set of fields.

## Kinds

| `kind`        | Use for                                                                                                                                                                            | Needs `violation_signal`?                                                                                |
| ------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `decision`    | "We chose A over B"                                                                                                                                                                | Yes — the forbidden strings the gate should catch                                                        |
| `prohibition` | "Never do X"                                                                                                                                                                       | Yes                                                                                                      |
| `constraint`  | "Z must always hold"                                                                                                                                                               | No — re-injected on boot and when its scope is touched; no contradiction can be detected without signals |
| `proposal`    | An option you presented that the user never addressed — an orphaned fork. Lands as a review item; triaged later via `recall({ dream: true })`. (Absorbs the old `flag_proposals`.) | No                                                                                                       |

## Parameters

| Name                                       | Type      | Description                                                                                                                                                              |
| ------------------------------------------ | --------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `kind`                                     | string    | **Required.** See above.                                                                                                                                                 |
| `statement`                                | string    | **Required.** The claim, ≥ 8 chars.                                                                                                                                      |
| `rationale`                                | string    | Why. This is what a successor reads.                                                                                                                                     |
| `violation_signal`                         | string\[] | Strings whose presence in an action = a contradiction (`["mongoose", "MongoClient"]`). Matched with word boundaries, a negation window and citation-without-call guards. |
| `affects`                                  | string\[] | Path globs that scope the anchor. A scoped anchor fires on files under its paths; on `Bash` (no path) a signal hit is enough.                                            |
| `detect_terms`                             | string\[] | Topical keywords for an unscoped anchor — the gate reminds you when they appear. Keep them specific; `map` and `edge` fire everywhere.                                   |
| `domain`                                   | string    | `strategy` · `product` · `engineering` · `growth` · …                                                                                                                    |
| `decision_mode`                            | string    | `hypothesis` · `constraint` · `commitment` · `source_of_truth` (display classification).                                                                                 |
| `confidence`                               | number    | 0–1.                                                                                                                                                                     |
| `review_after`                             | string    | ISO date for the next review.                                                                                                                                            |
| `node_type`                                | string    | Free label, e.g. `north_star`. A North Star is the frame `recall({ dream: true })` triages proposals against.                                                            |
| `decided` / `siblings` / `session_context` | —         | For `kind: "proposal"`: what the user chose instead, the other options, one line of context.                                                                             |

## Example

```json theme={null}
{
  "kind": "prohibition",
  "statement": "Do not adopt MongoDB as the primary store",
  "rationale": "Rejected 2026-09-04: it does not meet the strong-consistency requirement. Postgres it is.",
  "violation_signal": ["mongoose", "MongoClient", "MONGODB_URI"],
  "affects": ["src/db/**"],
  "domain": "engineering"
}
```

From now on, an Edit/Write/Bash containing `mongoose` gets this back before it runs:

```
⚠ Heads up — this action contradicts a decision you locked earlier.
• [#12] "Do not adopt MongoDB as the primary store" — Rejected 2026-09-04: …
  ↳ your action contains `mongoose` → contradicts it.

If you are intentionally changing this decision, supersede it on the record:
  resolve_drift(anchor_id: 12, action: 'supersede', superseded_by: <new anchor>).
If this match is simply wrong, say so and it stops firing:
  resolve_drift(anchor_id: 12, action: 'dismiss', hit_term: 'mongoose', rationale: '<why>').
```

Harden it (`resolve_drift({ action: 'harden' })`) and the same action is **denied** instead of warned.

## A proposal

```json theme={null}
{
  "kind": "proposal",
  "statement": "[unresolved] LinkedIn outreach to CTOs",
  "rationale": "Three channels were presented; only X was taken up.",
  "domain": "growth",
  "decided": "X",
  "siblings": ["X", "LinkedIn", "Dev community"]
}
```

Returns `anchor_id` and `candidate_id`. Triage later with `recall({ dream: true })` and settle with `resolve_drift({ candidate_id, action: 'surface' | 'dismiss', rationale })`.