九型人格入门: an Enneagram primer for Chinese speakers

The Enneagram, known in Chinese as 九型人格, sorts personality into nine types, each organised around one core motivation and one core fear. Two refinements, the wing and the instinctual subtype, make a reading more precise. If you know these few ideas and their Chinese names, you can follow a Gao Dao 高导 conversation and read your AgentSoul result without a glossary.

Motivation, not behaviour

Two people can both work late every night. One does it because a mistake would feel unbearable; another because being seen as successful matters deeply; a third because the team needs them. The Enneagram calls these three different types, because the reason behind the behaviour is different. That is why Gao Dao keeps asking why something mattered to you, not just what you did.

The nine types in Chinese and English

1. Type 1, the Reformer, 完美型 or 改革者: wants to be good and right; fears being flawed or corrupt.
2. Type 2, the Helper, 助人型: wants to be loved and needed; fears being unwanted.
3. Type 3, the Achiever, 成就型: wants to be valuable and admired; fears being worthless.
4. Type 4, the Individualist, 自我型 or 浪漫型: wants to be authentic and significant; fears having no identity.
5. Type 5, the Investigator, 理智型 or 观察者: wants to be capable and understand; fears being helpless or overwhelmed.
6. Type 6, the Loyalist, 忠诚型: wants security and support; fears being without guidance.
7. Type 7, the Enthusiast, 活跃型 or 享乐型: wants freedom and satisfaction; fears being trapped in pain.
8. Type 8, the Challenger, 领袖型 or 挑战者: wants to be strong and self-directed; fears being controlled or harmed.
9. Type 9, the Peacemaker, 和平型: wants inner and outer peace; fears conflict and separation.

Chinese books do not always agree on names, so the number is the safest way to compare sources. A Gao Dao result shows the number first, as in TYPE 6, and adds an archetype name of its own.

Three centres: gut, heart, head

The nine types are often grouped into three centres. Types 8, 9 and 1 form the gut or instinctive centre (本能中心), concerned with control and boundaries. Types 2, 3 and 4 form the heart or feeling centre (情感中心), concerned with image and connection. Types 5, 6 and 7 form the head or thinking centre (思维中心), concerned with security and uncertainty. Knowing your centre is a useful first clue when two types seem equally likely.

Wings and subtypes

Each type sits between two neighbours on the Enneagram circle, and one of them usually colours it more. That neighbour is the wing, 侧翼, written as 6w5 or 6w7. A 6w5 tends to be quieter and more analytical; a 6w7 more sociable and restless. A Gao Dao result always shows a wing next to the type.

Instinctual subtypes, 副型, describe where your energy goes first: self-preservation (SP, 自保) toward safety and resources; social (SO, 社交) toward belonging and standing in a group; one-to-one (SX, 一对一) toward intense individual connection. Gao Dao may ask about these near the end of a conversation, and the in-depth report includes what it noticed.

How AgentSoul uses all of this

AgentSoul is not trying to put you in a box. It uses the Enneagram as a compact vocabulary for character, then turns that character into four files an AI agent can read: soul.md for who the agent is, identity.md for how it presents itself, user.md for who it serves, and agents.md for how it works. A Type 1 soul might carry rules about precision and honest correction; a Type 9 soul might be gentler about disagreement but need a clear rule to raise problems early.

• Gao Dao 高导 reaches a type, wing and subtype through conversation, in Chinese, and lists other possible types.
• Flash Forge 闪电熔铸 reads your chat screenshots for a quick result: an archetype-style name, voice, pushback and priority traits, and the four files, but no type number.
• Deep Forge, a 49-question questionnaire in English, is on the web at agentsoul.market and comes to the app in version 1.1.

Where a type is given, it is an AI-generated hypothesis, not a diagnosis. If it does not ring true, read the alternatives in the report, edit the files, or forge again.