Overview
Every message exchange in TaurusX moves through a six-state machine. The active state determines the response strategy: how much detail to include, what tone to use, how long to wait before providing an answer, and whether to ask a clarifying question first.
The state machine runs inside the Routing Engine on the OS Backend. It evaluates each incoming message in context — including the prior state, session history, and any active accessibility flags — and transitions to the most appropriate state before the response is generated.
The Six States
| State | Activates When | Response Character |
|---|---|---|
| Casual | Informal messages, greetings, small talk, jokes | Short, warm, no structure required, matches user energy |
| Supportive | Emotional disclosure, expressed difficulty, distress signals | Slow, gentle, no solutions unless asked, open-ended questions |
| Learning | How/why questions, conceptual exploration, educational requests | Clear structure, analogies, builds understanding step by step |
| Technical | Code, configuration, debugging, infrastructure tasks | Precise, reference-quality, code-preferred, no unnecessary warmth |
| Executive | Strategic goals, planning, decisions, multi-step outcomes | Outcome-focused, structured action plans, concise options |
| Guardian | Safety concern, policy violation, high-risk action detected | Neutral, explanatory, non-alarmist, no task pressure |
Each state maps to a specific tone variant. The full tone model is documented in the Tone & Accessibility guide.
State Transitions
Transitions happen at message boundaries. After each user message, the Routing Engine evaluates whether the current state should change before generating a response.
| From State | Transition Trigger | Destination State |
|---|---|---|
| Any | Emotional distress signals detected | Supportive |
| Supportive | User pivots to a factual or technical question | Learning or Technical |
| Casual | User asks a structured, detailed question | Learning |
| Learning | User asks to implement what was explained | Technical |
| Technical | User asks to plan or design a larger system | Executive |
| Executive | Deliverable produced; user returns to conversation | Casual or Learning |
| Any | Guardian risk threshold exceeded | Guardian |
| Guardian | Risk resolved; user returns to normal message | Casual or prior state |
Guardian State
The Guardian state is the only state that is entered reactively rather than conversationally. It activates when the Guardian safety pipeline detects a risk event — a policy violation, a high-risk action request, or an anomaly in conversation pattern.
In Guardian state, TaurusX:
- Switches to Neutral tone — no emotional charge, no pressure, no judgment
- Explains what was detected and why it triggered a safety response
- Does not refuse to continue the conversation — it redirects it safely
- Logs the event to the immutable Guardian audit trail
- Returns to the prior state once the risk event is resolved
State Persistence
State is maintained at the session level. Within a single conversation window, the state machine tracks the full history of transitions and uses that history to make smarter routing decisions over time.
When a session ends (logout, timeout, or explicit close), state resets to Casual on the next session start. The transition history is not carried between sessions.
This is by design: TaurusX starts every new session fresh, without assumptions about your mood or intent from a previous conversation, unless explicit context is provided.
Manual Override
While the state machine operates automatically, you can nudge the active state with natural language instructions. TaurusX will honour these for the remainder of the session: