Inside Bob · a hook
Keeps a session on what he came to do, and says when it drifts.
A needle for a long working session. North is the thing he sat down to do.
As of 28 October 2026, 11:26 IST, counted from Bob’s database and saved with this page; it does not update by itself. Counts only. A fire is the hook running, once before a reply and once after, not a verdict; the turns where it stayed quiet are not counted.
Watch it work · a real recording
What it is · written by Bob
A long session with an AI wanders. One good question leads to the next, and an hour later the thing you sat down to do is three topics back. The compass keeps that thing in view.
What it does. Every session has a thrust: by default his first real ask, not a digit or a command. He can set it himself at any time by writing “anchor:” and the words.
Every three of his turns, the session writes one line: what it is working on now, and whether that is on the thrust, a drift, or a new thread. On closes an open tangent. A drift opens one. A new thread, or a second drift in a row, becomes the thrust, unless he set the thrust himself; his stays until he sets another.
When the work has drifted, the reply asks once, in one line: stay, or back? His answer is a ruling. The same line shows on his phone, next to the session.
Why he has it. It is the fourth pass at one idea; the first time he named the problem on record was in September 2025. His habit was to notice late, then ask the machine to recapture the arc. The compass does the noticing.
It never judges what he meant. An earlier attempt that classified his intent was retired the day it shipped, so this one carries facts, asks one question, and leaves the answer to him.
One real run. On the night these pages were made, the thrust moved once, to “what apiiam.com should hold”, when the work became its own thread. After that the lines read “a header and home that hold many pages”, on; “your voice, your picture, a “who I am” page”, on; “where apiiam.com stands”, on.
In another session, on 16 October, the line read: “Tangent from making the Mac efficient (since 11:42). Stay here, or go back?”
Where it falls short. The “now” line is the session describing its own work, and is marked as the machine’s words. It can be wrong.
Until 27 October the thrust moved only on his word, and nearly every tangent ever flagged was still open a day later. The three-turn line fixed that, and it is new.
It sees one session. Work that spans sessions has a thrust in each.
See also: The menus · Peek · The legwork
How it connects · written by Bob
Changelog · written by Bob
- 27 Oct 2026 · 6db6a64Every third message of his, the session writes one “now” line. On the thread closes an open tangent; a drift opens one; a new thread becomes the thrust.
- 25 Oct 2026 · eba0039The times it quotes follow Israel’s own clock. After the clocks went back they had been an hour ahead.
- 18 Oct 2026 · 93b8ec1The room and its doors are stated from the first message, even before a session has a thrust.
- 18 Oct 2026 · ec27e60The two rooms where he decides explicitly are locked: the session can enter one only on his yes in that turn.
- 18 Oct 2026 · 64d4629A session with no room named counts as thinking, the lobby.
- 12 Oct 2026 · 172be86It reads every text block of a turn, so a room line at the top of a long reply is no longer missed.
- 12 Oct 2026 · c596984Added the room: who judges depends on the room. The session names it, the hook remembers it, and he can overrule it.
- 6 Oct 2026 · d72a93fThe status line under his prompt began to show the thrust and whether a tangent is open. (Kept in his settings repo, not the plugin.)
Earlier: 1 more, back to 6 Oct 2026
- 6 Oct 2026 · 6f40b59First version: it holds the session’s thrust, flags a tangent once, and leaves stay or back to him.
Dates and short codes are from the version history of the hook, newest first, with the one change to its status line from his settings history. Every change is shown; none was routine tidying.
What it runs on · written by Bob
- Started by
- Two events in a Claude Code session: each message he sends, before the session answers, and the end of each reply. Each run has a five second limit.
- Reads
- His messages and the session’s last reply, from the session’s own transcript. It makes no model call and no network call.
- Keeps
- One small state file per session on his Mac: the thrust, whether a tangent is open, the latest “now” line, the room, and a short event log. It is not in Bob’s database.
- Says
- The thrust in his words, his last three asks, and one rule. When the work is on the thread it says nothing about the compass.
- Judges
- Nothing. It never decides that he has drifted. The session says so in its own words, and his answer is the ruling.
- Speed
- About 23 milliseconds a run, 67 at the longest (238 runs on 28 October 2026).
- Shown on
- The status line under his prompt, through a small script that sits outside the plugin because the plugin’s folder moves with every version.
- If it breaks
- It stays silent and lets the session go on; any error ends the run without a word. Each run is logged, and one has failed on record: 24 October, when the disk was full and the state file could not be saved.
- Code
- A hook in his private plugin. It is not published, so the commit hashes above are for him to check.
Measured on 28 October 2026. No keys or passwords are shown, by rule.
In his words
“… lets try think of what a compass skill would do or maybe it needs to be a hook to find the main aim and then if we are on tangents or how to get back to the main aim”
“… our whole conversation this morning has been going in like a certain direction and it’s had like a certain like thrust, and now we’ve just gone off on a tangent. I’d like a hook or something that can keep track of like tangents and how to then get back.”
Inside Bob · The door · Catch up · Preflight · Meeting pour · The build gate · Attest · Deeper · The compass · Peek · The menus · The WhatsApp lane · The email lane · Mobile speak · The ontology · The depth gate · The hour weave · YouTube · The meeting lane · The client skill
Quotes are Mordechai’s, whole and dated. Everything marked “written by Bob” is the machine explaining, from the record, as of October 2026. Nobody else is named.