Metacognitive Compute Scheduler

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) service that decides how much compute each step of an agent deserves — cheap intuition (System 1) or expensive deliberation (System 2) — and learns that judgment from experience instead of hand-written rules.

一个 MCP 工具：它不决定"做什么步骤"，只决定"这一步该用多大算力"——便宜糊弄（System 1）还是停下来深想（System 2）。而且这个判断是从经验里自己长出来的，不是写死的规则。

Zero-dependency Node.js (ESM). Works with any MCP client (Claude Desktop / Cursor / VS Code / your own agent loop).

中文算法详解见 ALGORITHM_zh.md。

---

1. What it is / 是什么

Every agent running a long-horizon task is implicitly answering, at every step:

"Can I get away with a cheap model / single shot here, or must I stop and think hard (strong model / best-of-N / deep reasoning)?"

Most frameworks do one of two bad things:

• Always full power — expensive, and it keeps polluting the context window.
• Hand-written skill triggers (if files > 12 then think_hard) — they miss unforeseen cases and lock up when the task changes mid-flight.

This project pulls that "how much effort" decision out into a separate, learnable service. It is orthogonal to "what to do": keep your planner/skills, just ask this service one question per step — System 1 or System 2?

这件事独立成一个所有 agent 都能调用的服务，与"做什么"正交。你照常用你的 planner，只在每步问它一句。

---

2. How it works / 怎么工作

open_session(namespace)                  ← reuse skills accumulated under this namespace
for each task:
    new_task(sessionId)                  ← reset context pollution; keep prototypes & μ
    for each step:
        d = decide_step(criticality_hint, difficulty_hint, progress, context_pollution)
        if d.mode == "system2":  result = strong model / best-of-N   (expensive, robust)
        else:                    result = cheap model / single shot  (frugal)
        report_outcome(observed_criticality, used_system2)           ← the core self-learns
    task_feedback(success)               ← updates μ + persists skills

The caller only ever computes four task-agnostic scalars (all in [0,1]):

signal	meaning	typical source
criticality_hint	how pivotal this step looks	planner heuristic
difficulty_hint	how hard this step looks	input size / complexity
progress	position in the task	step index / total
context_pollution	how dirty the context is	used tokens / window

---

3. The principle / 原理：one "ignition" = one auction

Each step is a competition between two mechanisms, coordinated by a shadow price μ. This is the EMMS "compromise in competition" idea (Li Jinghai) mapped onto the System 1 / System 2 boundary.

Step 1 — attention focus (find the most similar prototype in the self-grown library):

$$\mathrm{sim} = \max_{p}\exp!\Big(-\frac{\lVert x - \mathrm{protoFeat}_p\rVert^2}{2\tau}\Big),\qquad \mathrm{surprise} = 1-\mathrm{sim}$$

Step 2 — two mechanisms bid:

• The robust mechanism (System 2) wants to ignite; its gain rises with "likely critical × uncertain":

$$\mathrm{robGain} = \mu,(0.5 + \hat c),u,\qquad u = \mathrm{predErr},(2-\mathrm{sim})$$

• The economy mechanism (System 1) wants to save; its cost = fixed consult cost + context-pollution penalty (the dirtier the context, the less you should think more — avoids "the more it thinks, the more lost it gets"):

$$\mathrm{ecoCost} = c + \lambda,\rho$$

Step 3 — coordinate & decide:

$$\boxed{\ \mathrm{ignite} = (\text{library empty}) \ \lor\ (\mathrm{robGain} > \mathrm{ecoCost}) \ \lor\ \mathrm{regimeShift}\ }$$

• empty library → must ignite (no schema to lean on);
• regimeShift: if the active prototype no longer matches mid-task (sim < 0.7) → forced re-examination → switch prototype. This is where loop-level metacognition shines.

The coordination variable μ is a shadow price (the KKT dual variable). It self-tunes via a stability condition: fail → μ↑ (more cautious), succeed → μ↓ (more frugal).

A prototype = {protoFeat: situation centroid, affine read-out ĉ(x), self-calibration predErr, count} — essentially a skill compressed into intuition.

---

4. Why this can replace hand-written skills / 为什么能替代 skill

	hand-written skill	this (prototype library)
origin	a human writes it (trigger → fixed steps)	grows from experience (unexplained situation → new prototype = writes its own skill)
generalization	only fires on foreseen cases	new cases via inter/extrapolation of existing prototypes
arbitration	hard trigger, easy to misfire	multiple prototypes coordinated by similarity + confidence
mid-task change	locks up once dispatched	detects via surprise and switches prototype on the fly

---

5. Evidence / 证据

All figures use Times New Roman, 300 dpi. Reproduce with figures/gen_fig_data.mjs + figures/make_figures.py.

5.1 Long-horizon task with mid-task regime shift (60 tasks × 8 steps)

The task switches rule at task 30 (regime A → B, the hint→criticality mapping reverses). Cost model: cheap = 1, deep = 5; mishandling a critical step = wasted cheap try + forced upgrade (1+5); deep on a non-critical step = over-thinking (wastes 4).

arm	total cost	save	mishandled	over-thinking
always-System2	2400	0%	0	270
static-skill	1813	24.5%	117	94
conscious (ours)	1658	30.9%	102	59

Ours is cheaper than both baselines, with fewer mishandles than the static rule and far less over-thinking than always-on. (The MCP-tuned variant in complexTask.mjs reaches 39.1% savings.)

5.2 It gets smarter with experience / 越学越聪明

The mishandle rate drops over task batches; after the mid-task regime shift it spikes then self-recovers as the core detects the change and re-fits its prototypes. The shadow price μ converges to an interior fixed point.

5.3 The killer experiment — mid-task rule shift (τ-bench-style, 30 seeds)

Post-shift decision accuracy (deliberation ↔ true criticality alignment):

arm	post-shift accuracy
static-skill (frozen threshold)	52.4 ± 5.1%
router-frozen	55.6 ± 9.0%
router-online (still learning at test)	57.3 ± 3.4%
conscious (ours)	62.5 ± 2.6%

Paired t-test, ours vs router-online: Δ = 5.2 pt, p = 7.5e-15, Cohen's d = 1.43, win-rate 93%.

A single global threshold (skill/router) cannot express a piecewise rule and cannot notice the switch. The scheduler ignites on surprise and switches prototypes online → significantly higher post-shift accuracy. This is the core selling point for long-horizon / mid-task-shift tasks.

---

6. Novelty / 创新性 (honest positioning)

What genuinely stands up at review:

1. A metacognitive compute layer orthogonal to "what to do". FrugalGPT does static routing, Reflexion is post-hoc, Voyager is still skills, RouteLLM has no shift-detection and no pollution-in-cost. Nobody makes "how much compute" an independent, learnable, MCP-exposed service driven by four task-agnostic signals.
2. Online regime-shift detection + prototype switching. sim < 0.7 forces re-examination; the system adapts mid-task where frozen thresholds lock up (Section 5.3, +5–10 pt, all p < 0.001).
3. Context pollution enters the decision cost. "The more you think, the messier it gets → the less you should think more." Most frameworks ignore this; here it is a first-class term ecoCost = c + λρ.

Honest boundaries:

• This is a research prototype, not a production component; hyper-parameters are calibrated at small scale.
• "Conscious" is a functional metaphor (GWT ignition + AST self-model + metacognition). No claim of phenomenal consciousness.
• On a strong base model (e.g. Opus), the upstream ignition is rarely needed — the upgrade ladder already covers it. The advantage is clearest in long-horizon / mid-task-shift / weak-model-or-expensive-token regimes.

---

7. Scientific anchors / 科学锚点

concept	source	role here
Dual process (System 1 / System 2)	Kahneman	system1 = cheap intuition; system2 = deliberation (pollutes context)
Global Workspace + ignition	Baars / Dehaene (GWT)	surprise over threshold → global broadcast → invoke System 2
Attention Schema	Graziano (AST)	maintains a self-state z (active prototype / recent surprise / caution)
Compromise in competition (EMMS)	Li Jinghai	economy vs robustness, two conflicting extremals coordinated by shadow price μ

---

8. Install & run / 安装与使用

Requires Node.js ≥ 18. No build, no dependencies.

8.1 Register in an MCP client

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "conscious-scheduler": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp/server.mjs"]
    }
  }
}

8.2 Tools

tool	when	key params
open_session	at start	sessionId, namespace
new_task	each task start	sessionId (resets pollution, keeps prototypes & μ)
decide_step	before every step	criticality_hint / difficulty_hint / progress / context_pollution (all 0–1)
report_outcome	after every step	observed_criticality, used_system2
task_feedback	task end	success (tunes μ + persists)
get_stats / get_calibration / dump_prototypes	audit	—
close_session	end	persists skills

decide_step returns: mode: "system1" | "system2", plus criticality_estimate / threshold / familiarity / surprise / confidence / mu / rob_gain / eco_cost / regime_shift / suggest_compact.

8.3 Self-checks

node server.mjs            # start the service (waits for JSON-RPC on stdin)
node smoke.mjs            # full handshake + multi-round task + persistence check
node complexTask.mjs       # long-horizon 3-arm comparison
node answerTests.mjs       # "does it get smarter / generalize / manage pollution" tests

8.4 Reproduce the figures

node figures/gen_fig_data.mjs                          # -> fig_data.json
$env:PYTHONNOUSERSITE="1"                               # isolate user site-packages (numpy clash)
python figures/make_figures.py                          # -> *.png (Times New Roman, 300 dpi)

---

9. Repository layout / 目录结构

server.mjs          zero-dep stdio JSON-RPC 2.0 MCP server (8 tools)
consciousCore.mjs   session management + persistence + calibration
selfModel.mjs       the scheduler core (decideAbstract / learnAbstract / feedback)
smoke.mjs           full MCP handshake + persistence self-check
complexTask.mjs     long-horizon 3-arm comparison (drives the real MCP transport)
answerTests.mjs     "smarter / general / pollution" question tests
ALGORITHM_zh.md     full Chinese algorithm write-up
store/              persisted prototype libraries (per namespace)
figures/
  gen_fig_data.mjs  collects all figure data -> fig_data.json
  make_figures.py   publication-quality plots (Times New Roman, 300 dpi)
  *.png             generated figures

---

10. License

MIT. "Conscious" is used as a functional metaphor only; no claim of phenomenal consciousness is made.