The seed agent moves through a fixed cycle of cognition compartments — idle, then OBSERVE, PLAN, EXECUTE, VERIFY, CONDENSE, and back to idle. But real work is not a straight march forward. A plan turns out wrong; a build hits a gap the gathering missed; a check reveals the whole approach was off. So the cycle also backs up: every work phase can recover to an earlier one. This deck shows the whole Markov transition map — not just the forward spine you may have seen in the companion deck, but every legal move the seed can make: each forward advance (solid arrow, earned by passing the three-family exit gate) AND each backward recovery (dashed arrow, free — clean git is the only cost). It also shows the two moves that break the plain ring — the plan→verify jump and the OBSERVE→idle bail — and the gmode off-cycle lane, enterable from any phase and returning to the exact phase it interrupted. Hover any arrow to read what that transition is and why it exists. Click any box for the phase behind it.
Forward movement is earned; backing up is free. That asymmetry is the whole design.