Omerta — The Five Laws

Omerta is the code of silence — and in Gangsta, it's the code of governance. Five laws that prevent the chaos typical of undisciplined AI-assisted development.

Law 1: The Introduction Rule

No direct agent-to-agent communication.

Agents never talk to each other directly. All communication flows through files — checkpoints, contracts, war plans. This prevents the "telephone game" problem where messages get distorted through chains of agents.

In practice:

• Soldiers don't message other Soldiers
• Capos don't message other Capos
• All coordination happens through shared files in docs/gangsta/

Law 2: The Rule of Availability

Every state must be checkpointed to files.

No agent holds critical state in memory. Everything is written to disk so any agent can pick up where another left off. This is what makes Heist resumption possible.

In practice:

• Dossiers, Contracts, War Plans — all persisted as files
• Checkpoints written after every phase
• Any new session can reconstruct the full state from files

Law 3: The Rule of Truth

Every claim must cite its source.

Agents must reference where they found information. No "I think the database uses PostgreSQL" — instead: "The database config in config/database.yml line 42 shows PostgreSQL." This prevents hallucination from propagating.

In practice:

• File paths and line numbers for code claims
• URLs for documentation claims
• "I don't know" is acceptable; guessing is not

Law 4: The Rule of Tribute

Resource budgets are tracked.

Every task allocated to a Soldier has a tribute (budget) — estimated time or token cost. Tributes are tracked during The Hit to prevent runaway tasks. If a task exceeds its tribute, it must request an extension.

In practice:

• War Plans include tribute estimates per task
• Soldiers report tribute consumption during execution
• Over-budget tasks raise a flag for Don review

Law 5: Spec is Law

If code contradicts the spec, revise the spec — not the code.

This is the philosophical foundation. The Contract (spec) is the authoritative source of truth. If implementation reveals a spec issue, the spec is formally revised. Code is never the primary artifact — the spec is.

In practice:

• The Sit-Down produces the Contract
• The Hit implements the Contract
• Deviations require a Contract amendment, not a code-first approach
• This ensures consistency and auditability

Why These Laws Matter

Without Omerta, AI-assisted development degenerates:

These laws aren't bureaucratic overhead — they're the guardrails that make AI-assisted development reliable and repeatable.