Module presentation 

Verb response presentation modes and transformation (ADR-045).

Handlers always return a canonical (verbose) shape. This module transforms that shape into a caller-appropriate form AFTER dispatch, BEFORE wire serialization.

Transformation rules

Field type	Verbose form	Agent form
UUID (36-char)	"a1b2c3d4-e5f6-..."	"a1b2c3d4" (8 chars)
ISO-8601 timestamp	"2026-05-23T16:18:15.234Z"	"2026-05-23T16:18" (< 24h: "3m ago")
Empty string ""	included	dropped
Empty array []	included	dropped
Empty object {}	included	dropped
null (non-lifecycle)	included	dropped
null (lifecycle *_at, relationship markers)	included	preserved
Score fields	0.1234567890	0.123 (3 sig figs)

Human mode design decision (ADR-045 C3)

Human mode (presentation=human) is intentionally a no-op at the MCP runtime layer — it returns the same canonical JSON as Verbose. The full terminal formatting described in ADR-045 §3 (relative timestamps, glyph substitution, table layout, UUID dimming) is the responsibility of the CLI layer (khive-cli::format::pretty), not the MCP response pipeline.

Rationale: MCP responses are consumed by callers over a JSON transport. Injecting ANSI escape codes or table-layout whitespace into JSON would corrupt the response for non-terminal consumers. The CLI receives verbose JSON and applies the terminal transform before printing. Implementing terminal formatting inside present() would couple the runtime to a display concern that belongs at the output layer.

Consequence: agents that call presentation=human receive verbose JSON. This is documented behavior, not a bug. If the CLI is the caller it applies its own second-pass formatting — it should not use presentation=human over MCP precisely because the MCP boundary is not a terminal.

Verbose mode passes through canonically. Human mode is identical to Verbose at this layer by design.

Chain invariant: present_response MUST NOT be called on intermediate chain results — only on the final response envelope after all $prev substitutions complete.

Enums

PresentationMode

How the response envelope is presented to the caller (ADR-045).

Functions

micros_to_iso

Convert a microsecond epoch i64 to an RFC 3339 / ISO-8601 string.

present

Transform a successful verb result value according to the given PresentationMode.