The Agent Contract

AGENTS.md in the repo root is the agent's operating contract. Claude Code and Codex are the two supported product choices, and each uses a CareerRat-owned direct adapter to run the same contract. The selected installed CLI is invoked directly; CareerRat never silently switches to another provider. ACP adapters remain diagnostic-only until they pass the full product boundary and packaged acceptance matrix. See Why Only Two Supported Engines? for what that boundary actually checks. The file is the source of truth; this page summarizes the key sections. CareerRat, not a provider's session history, owns the durable workflow and thread state.

Paul's user-facing voice is part of that shared contract. It uses ordinary language instead of internal product or recruiting jargon. When a question asks the candidate to make an abstract choice, Paul includes two or three concrete examples so the answer is obvious without extra explanation.

Intent routing

The agent routes any user input — a job paste, a recruiter email, a question, a command — to the owning skill without you naming a skill explicitly. The routing table is extensive; a few key examples:

Paste routing is universal: anything dropped into the agent chat gets classified, captured, and routed — nothing evaporates.

Gate contract

evaluate-job is the shared mandatory gate. No tailoring, filling, or submission can proceed without a KEEP verdict (or an explicit user-approved REVIEW).

apply-job runs or verifies evaluate-job as step zero. It cannot skip this step, even when the user says "just apply." Supervised automation may fill safe, confirmed fields and attach documents. Voluntary demographic and self-identification questions stay blank by default. The local-only Profile > Application defaults editor can keep them blank or choose the form's decline option when available. An existing exact answer is eligible only when the candidate explicitly saved it. CareerRat never infers one, and this setting never enters Paul's context. CareerRat may use ordinary Next or Continue controls while filling a multi-step form, but it never activates a control that submits the application or confirms a submission. The user handles CAPTCHAs, reviews the prepared form, and performs the final submit.

Data Write Contract

In a database-backed workspace, every tracker-visible mutation goes through a documented careerrat data <verb>. One transaction updates the canonical row, freshness/version metadata, the Activity Pulse, relevant analytics, and the compatibility exports. The skill then verifies the result with:

1. careerrat data verify
2. careerrat tracker --verify

Legacy JSON-only workspaces follow the separate Tracker Write Contract in AGENTS.md. Database-backed exports must never be hand-edited.

Artifact rules

• Every generated artifact (résumé, cover letter, email) must be complete — no templates, no [Placeholder] tokens.
• Artifacts land in two places: the tracker record (for dashboard access) and ~/Downloads/careerrat/<Company>/ (convenience copy).
• Placeholder lint runs before any artifact is marked build-ready. An unresolved bracket blocks the build.
• The agent never invents facts. Claims trace to .careerrat/candidate/evidence.yml.

The body-read gate invariant

The JD body is captured locally at grab time — when a posting is sourced, evaluated, or applied to. A link is never a substitute: postings vanish when a req closes or goes behind a login. The gate reads the locally saved body, not a live URL, so evaluation stays possible even after the req is taken down.

Privacy invariant

profile.yml#compensation.current_base is private. It informs comp strategy but must never appear in any outbound artifact (résumé, cover letter, recruiter message, interview packet, tracker note that could be shared). Outbound comp anchors on target_base. Skills that produce outbound text route around current_base by field path.

Domain-neutral rule

Skills and code never hardcode personal, role, tech, comp, region, board, or company preferences. Every such bias lives in .careerrat/candidate/ config files. A trucking candidate and an AI engineer run the same skills with different configs and get different behavior.

Round vocabulary

Interview rounds are named by type, never numbered:

The dashboard derives an application's pipeline rung from the deepest kind it can classify. "Round 2" is never written.