Appending Recovery Guidance for AI Self-Correction

Recovery guidance is formatted specifically for AI consumption and appended to error responses automatically. The guidance format is optimized for large language models, using clear structure, concrete examples, and explicit next steps that AI can follow without ambiguity.

Guidance format:

Every recovery guidance message includes four components:

• What went wrong — Clear explanation of the error in plain language. Example: “The ‘component’ parameter is required but was not provided.”
• Correct usage — Parameter list with types and descriptions. Example: “component.set requires: target (string) – GameObject name, component (string) – Component type, property (string) – Property name, value (any) – New value”
• Example — Working example with realistic values. Example: “component.set target=’Player’ component=’Rigidbody’ property=’mass’ value=2”
• Next steps — Suggested recovery actions. Example: “Retry the command with the ‘component’ parameter included.”

This four-part structure gives Vex everything it needs to self-correct: understanding of the problem, specification of the solution, concrete example to follow, and explicit action to take.

Path anomaly guidance (DAP):

When file operations fail due to path issues, GameCatalyst appends DAP recovery steps:

• “Use workspace.find to locate the correct path” — Explicit instruction to use discovery instead of guessing
• “Use workspace.diagnose to validate the path before retrying” — Verification step to prevent repeated failures
• “Do not guess alternative paths” — Hard prohibition against trial-and-error
• Example workspace.find call — “workspace.find pattern=’Player’ type=file”

Path anomaly guidance is more prescriptive than validation error guidance because path guessing is a common AI failure mode. The guidance explicitly forbids guessing and requires discovery.

What you’ll notice:

When Vex makes a mistake, you’ll see it correct itself on the next attempt. Vex doesn’t repeatedly fail with the same error. It reads the guidance, adjusts, and succeeds. The conversation continues smoothly without you needing to explain what went wrong.

Example conversation flow:

1. You: “Set the player’s mass to 2”
2. Vex: [Calls component.set incorrectly]
3. Error: “Missing parameter ‘component'” + recovery guidance
4. Vex: [Calls component.set correctly with ‘component’ parameter]
5. Success: “Set Player.Rigidbody.mass to 2”

Total time: 3-5 seconds. You barely notice the error happened.

Offline fallback:

If the WhatIs Discovery endpoint is unavailable, GameCatalyst falls back to local database rules stored in gc_settings.db. Recovery guidance still works even if the WhatIs site is down, but it may be less detailed (no examples, shorter descriptions).

Guidance persistence:

Recovery guidance is stored in the MCP Bridge session cache. If Vex makes the same mistake twice in one session, the guidance is retrieved from cache instead of re-fetching from WhatIs. This reduces latency and WhatIs server load.