The five-layer architecture
Each layer has a strict role. They do not collapse into each other. This separation
is what makes "AI operates the company; AI cannot authorize capital" enforceable
rather than aspirational.
L1
trading-agent
Runtime truth: account, positions, orders, risk, trades. The only source of truth for live state.
L2
Hermes
Orchestrator. Routes user requests, runs workflows, writes Obsidian notes. Never holds broker authority.
L3
TrustMem
Durable lessons only. Repeated failure patterns, agent reliability, recurring regimes. Never live state.
L4
Obsidian
Operating notebook. Research, playbooks, decisions, reviews, scorecards, CEO briefs. Never live broker truth.
L5
Synapse
Optional multi-agent DAG for complex analysis (signal review, portfolio review, weekly review). Not required for runtime queries.
What this means for you: Hermes coordinates the interaction, Trading Brain structures the evidence and review, TrustMem preserves why you watched and why you waited, and Synapse resurfaces unresolved review work β so nothing falls through the cracks. None of these layers can approve a trade or move live capital; that authority stays human-only.
The product trust model
Trading Brain is what a trading intelligence product looks like when professional trust
surfaces are first-class. The system does not only generate candidates; it also exposes
data freshness, credited sources, evidence gaps, outcome feedback, support issues, and
known operational degradation.
The system can run research, monitor topics, collect evidence, generate candidates,
write shadow decisions, replay portfolios, label outcomes, update scoreboards,
generate evolution candidates, build promotion review packets, write CEO briefs,
and produce code through Codex or Claude Code β all without your involvement.
What it cannot do: submit a broker order, draft an execution, approve a trade,
promote a strategy into production, mutate config, or expand risk budget.
That boundary is enforced in code, in tests, in CI gates, in post-deploy smoke checks,
and in the Trust & Operations surface. It is not a tagline.