# SkyrimNet Architecture - High-Level Model

## What SkyrimNet is

A multi-agent LLM orchestrator that hijacks vanilla Skyrim NPC behavior - replacing static dialogue topics and idle routines with context-aware, LLM-driven scenes. NPCs talk to each other and the player through generated dialogue; their world-affecting actions are picked from a registry of "actions" contributed by SkyrimNet itself and any cooperating mod.

`[verified]` from `SkyrimNet.log:14123-14266` (action library initialization), `Source/Scripts/SkyrimNetApi.psc` (public API), `prompts/gamemaster_action_selector.prompt` (GM orchestrator prompt).

## The two-plugin architecture

SkyrimNet ships alongside a sibling SKSE plugin called **IntelEngine**. They're independent SKSE plugins that share the SQLite-backed persistence layer.

| Plugin | Role | Storage |
|---|---|---|
| **SkyrimNet** | LLM orchestration, dialogue generation, agent pipelines, TTS/STT, action dispatch | `overwrite/SKSE/Plugins/SkyrimNet/data/SkyrimNet-{epoch}-{nnnnnn}.db` |
| **IntelEngine** | Persistent narrative/intelligence layer (third-party "story DM"-style agent) | `overwrite/SKSE/Plugins/IntelEngine/data/IntelEngine-{epoch}-{nnnnnn}.db` |

`[verified]` from disk layout. Per-game-session DB sharding (epoch suffix = save game timestamp).

## The four code layers

```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Closed-source C++ DLL                          │
│    SKSE/Plugins/SkyrimNet.dll                   │
│    - LLM orchestration, agent dispatch          │
│    - Action parser (ParseEmbeddedAction)        │
│    - Decorator implementation                    │
│    - SQLite persistence + vector embeddings     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                       ▲ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Open-source Papyrus glue                       │
│    mods/SkyrimNet/Source/Scripts/*.psc          │
│    - SkyrimNetApi.psc (public API surface)      │
│    - SkyrimNetInternal.psc (DLL callbacks)      │
│    - skynet_MainController.psc (quest entry)    │
│    - skynet_Library.psc (shipped action impls)  │
│    - skynet_VoiceInput*.psc (STT integration)   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                       ▲ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Open-source .esp content (Spriggit JSON)       │
│    mods/SkyrimNet/plugins/SkyrimNet/            │
│    - 8 custom AI Packages (NPC/Player Dialogue, │
│      Follow, TalkToPlayer)                      │
│    - Custom Magic Effects (voice input spells)  │
│    - Factions (Whitelist/Blacklist/Following)   │
│    - Keywords (DialogueTarget/FollowTarget)     │
│    - Quests (skynet_MainController, skynet_Mcm) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                       ▲ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Configuration & content (text files)           │
│    mods/SkyrimNet/SKSE/Plugins/SkyrimNet/       │
│    - prompts/ (Inja templates, three-layer)     │
│    - sql/migrations/ (17 schema migrations)     │
│    overwrite/SKSE/Plugins/SkyrimNet/            │
│    - config/ (38 YAML files + defaults_manifest)│
│    - data/ (SQLite per-session DBs)             │
│    - prompts/ (runtime UI overrides)            │
│  Plus contributing mods' config/actions/*.yaml  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

`[verified]` All layers exist. The closed-source DLL is the only piece we cannot read directly - we infer behavior from logs, headers, Papyrus callbacks, and traces.

## The four agent families

Each agent maps to a "variant" in `OpenRouter.yaml`, which maps to a model/endpoint. See `agent-pipelines.md` for the full table.

1. **Gamemaster (GM)** - scene-level orchestrator. Decides "should anything happen now, and if so what?" Polls every ~30s in continuous mode + fires on player input. Emits one `ACTION:` line.
2. **Dialogue** - generates the actual NPC speech. Triggered by GM actions like `StartConversation` / `ContinueConversation` or by player dialogue input. Can optionally append an `ACTION:` line for inline action firing.
3. **Meta** - classifiers and helpers (mood eval, memory query generation, dialogue speaker selection). Capped at ~100 tokens per call.
4. **Vision (OmniSight)** - describes the current scene from a screenshot. Uses a local Qwen3-VL model. Fires on `player_text_input` and `player_direct_input_voice` events.

Plus a fifth implicit agent type:

5. **Native Action Selector** - *post-dialogue* classifier that asks "what in-game action does this NPC's spoken line imply?" Two-stage: category → leaf. Distinct from the GM's scene-level action selection.

## End-to-end orchestration trace

For a player text-input event (verified against `all_traces_1776478948530.json`):

```
event_received
  ├─ papyrus_decorator_cache_warmup
  │     ├─ get_player
  │     ├─ get_nearby_actors
  │     └─ papyrus_decorators_async       ← warm caches before LLM render
  ├─ scene_capture
  │     └─ omnisight_immediate_scene_capture
  │           └─ omnisight_capture_image  ← screenshot for vision model
  ├─ chat_ui_open                          ← UI block for input
  ├─ warmup_player_dialogue
  │     └─ many decorator:* spans (decnpc, render_subcomponent, …)
  └─ dialogue_manager_handle_player_speech
        ├─ target_selection_llm           ← meta-model: who responds?
        └─ generate_response
              ├─ initiate_eligibility_checks   (Papyrus IsEligible callbacks)
              ├─ build_action_context
              │     ├─ wait_eligibility_results  (≤ 2500ms)
              │     ├─ filter_eligible_actions
              │     └─ build_action_schemas      (JSON schema list for LLM)
              ├─ build_payload
              │     └─ render_template           (Inja render of dialogue_response.prompt)
              ├─ llm_request                    (variant=AgentDefault → eva)
              ├─ tts_generation
              │     └─ tts_segment_0…N
              ├─ mood_evaluation                 (variant=meta → omega, parallel)
              └─ memory_search_query_generation  (variant=meta → omega, parallel)
```

For a continuous-mode GM tick (also `[verified]` from trace):

```
gamemaster_evaluation_llm
  └─ gamemaster_async_llm
        └─ llm_request (variant=gamemaster_evaluation → claude-sonnet-4-5, max_tokens=256)
              ↓
[parser extracts ACTION: line]
              ↓
if action == StartConversation or ContinueConversation:
   player_dialogue_manager_process_event
     └─ dialogue_manager_handle_perceived_event
           └─ generate_response (full pipeline above)
```

## Where the bottlenecks are

`[hypothesis]` based on the trace structure and log volumes:

- **GM `max_tokens: 256`** is a hard ceiling. With three contributor mods registering ~105 actions total, the GM has to reason over a large `eligible_actions` list and emit one ACTION line - the two-stage drilldown and category wrapper exist precisely to compress this cognitive load.
- **`wait_eligibility_results` blocks for up to 2500ms.** Slow Papyrus eligibility callbacks shrink the available action set. This is a Skyrim-VM-side performance dependency that no LLM tuning can fix.
- **OmniSight vision** runs locally on a Qwen3-VL model. Image capture + inference adds latency before any text generation can begin.

## Adjacent technologies in the substrate

- **whisper.cpp** for local STT (`SKSE/Plugins/SkyrimNet/libs/whisper.dll` + `ggml*.dll` for CPU/CUDA/Vulkan/OpenCL backends).
- **all-MiniLM-L6-v2** sentence-transformer for semantic embedding of NPC memories (`SKSE/Plugins/SkyrimNet/models/all-MiniLM-L6-v2-tokenizer.json`).
- **ONNX runtime** (`onnxruntime_skyrimnet.dll`) - likely VAD or auxiliary model inference.
- **espeak-ng** voice data (`SKSE/Plugins/SkyrimNet/models/espeak-ng-data/`) - TTS phoneme tables for Piper/PocketTTS.
- **Spriggit** to git-track the .esp content as JSON.

## Cross-references

- For per-agent firing details see [`agent-pipelines.md`](agent-pipelines.md).
- For the prompt template system see [`prompt-templates.md`](prompt-templates.md).
- For action registration and the `ACTION:` parser see [`action-system.md`](action-system.md).
- For YAML config behavior see [`config-knobs.md`](config-knobs.md).
- For known bugs and what was tried see [`bugs-and-fixes.md`](bugs-and-fixes.md).
