From Invite to Home
In short
Section titled “In short”This is one visual page covering the whole distance between somebody being invited to Qren and that person opening their finished screen for the first time. It shows the five gates of getting in and who is responsible for each, the three different starting points a machine can come from, and what the first version of the main screen actually holds. It also marks, honestly, how much of that is built today and how much is still to be written. Nothing on the page is typed in by hand: the names and the states are read out of the decision record and the specifications each time the site is built, so the page cannot quietly go stale.
Someone is invited. Some time later they open one screen that has their work, their notes, their files and their agent on it, running on a machine they own. This board is the whole distance between those two moments — who acts at each step, the three ways a machine gets there, what the screen holds, and how much of it is still unwritten.
No name and no state on this page is typed in by hand. The step names, the system names and every state are read out of the decision record and the specs in this repo when the site is built; only the sentences are the board’s own. If the record changes, the board changes with it — and if it changes in a way the board cannot read, the site refuses to build.
Getting in
Section titled “Getting in”Admission is invite-only and staged. Each step is a gate, and each gate belongs to somebody: the first three are ours, the last two happen on the owner’s own machine.
- invite
The invite goes out to one person. There is no sign-up form and no waiting list.
us - account approved
One person approves it, by hand. This is the gate that never gets automated.
us - joins the network
The person gets an identity on the portal and a private door to their own machine.
us - owner grants on their own machine
On their Mac they install the app and grant it what it needs, once.
the owner - instance live
Their instance runs on their own hardware, and their work never leaves it.
the owner
Three ways in
Section titled “Three ways in”Past the gate, a machine arrives at Home by one of three routes. They differ only at the start — a bare Mac, a machine already carrying years of AOS, or a person joining somebody else’s workspace — and they end at the same screen.
A fresh Mac
Nothing on the machine yet.
- Install QrenOne signed app carries the interface, the service that runs everything, and the command line. — next
- Grant it what it needs, onceThe app asks at install and never asks again. — next
- The service startsOne background service. It starts the workers; nothing else may. — next
- Engines found, signed inThe installer looks for the coding engines already on the Mac, shows what it found, and offers to sign in. — next
- First workspaceName it once. A folder appears with its files, its notes and its log. — next
- HomeOne screen with the whole workspace on it. — next
A Mac already running AOS
Years of notes and tasks already on it.
- Install QrenThe same app. The old system keeps running beside it, untouched. — next
- The Gardener proposes what crossesIt reads the old notes, tasks and files and offers them a batch at a time. — next
- The owner approves from the queueNothing crosses without a yes, and every yes teaches it what to offer next. — next
- The old services retireOnly once the new side is carrying the work. Built, then held until then. — later
- HomeThe same screen, with the history already in it. — next
Someone joining a workspace
A person on a team that already has an appliance.
- Install QrenThe lighter build. It keeps no work of its own. — next
- The invite arrivesOne link, sent by the owner of the workspace. — next
- Joins the workspace on the applianceThe work stays on the owner's machine. The member reaches it; nothing is copied out. — next
- HomeThe same screen, holding only what they are a member of. — next
- built — its spec is shipped
- next — named in the first slice
- later — after the skeleton stands
shipped; it is next when it stands on one of the 11 systems the decision record puts in the first slice; and it is later when it stands on none of them. No spec is shipped today, so nothing is built yet — and on the day one is, its nodes turn here with nobody touching this page.What Home is
Section titled “What Home is”The first slice is horizontal: every core system gets a thin version that works end-to-end, and nothing goes deeper until all of them work on a real workspace. That constraint is what Home looks like — one screen, one thin panel per system, no depth anywhere.
Work
1Chat
4Start from the decision record. One item table, nothing else.
Read it. One item, one status, one parent, three relations. I can open the six items it implies.
Open 6 work items from the decision record
Open them, then draft the spec from the same section.
Knowledge
2Titles everywhere. A hidden seven-character code for links. Project keys off by default.
from the decision record · 20 AugCompanion
5Drive
3- Knowledge148
- Log96
- Files62
- Meetings4
Connection
6| Key | Panel | What it shows | Spec |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Work | A board with a triage lane and four verbs: accept, decline, duplicate, snooze. | Work core draft |
| 2 | Knowledge | One field. Ask it something; it answers from this workspace's own notes. | spec pending |
| 3 | Drive | The workspace's folders, exactly as they sit on disk. | spec pending |
| 4 | Chat | A thread on one work item, carrying an agent's turn and an approval card. | spec pending |
| 5 | Companion | One imported meeting and the tasks it proposes. | spec pending |
| 6 | Connection | Exactly one, read-only: the calendar. | spec pending |
| 7 | Lead agent | One agent per workspace, saying what it is doing right now. | spec pending |
| 8 | Approval queue | Everything an agent or the Gardener wants to do waits here for a yes. | spec pending |
What stands between here and Home
Section titled “What stands between here and Home”10 of the 11 systems in the first slice still have no spec. That is the whole distance between this page and Home.
| System | Spec written | Approved | Shipped |
|---|---|---|---|
| app + Supervisor + hidden folder + DriveWhat the installed app is made of, where its private folder lives, and how a workspace and its members are defined. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| workOne item, one status, one parent, three relations — and what each of the four triage verbs does. | Spec written: yes | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| knowledgeWhere a workspace's notes live, how they are indexed, and what one recall command returns. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| driveOne folder per workspace on disk, and how the app lists it without owning it. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| chatThreads that hang off a work item and carry agent turns and approval cards. No channels. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| companionHow one meeting comes in, becomes a record, and turns into proposed tasks. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| connectionsWhat one read-only connection may see, and where its secret sits. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| agentsWhat a Lead may do on its own, what it must ask for, and how that line moves. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| approval queueThe one queue every proposal passes through, and what an approval teaches the Gardener. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| Supervisor running one workerHow the service starts, what it is allowed to run, and how the app talks to it. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
| portal login + inviteHow an invite becomes an account, and an account becomes a member of a workspace. | Spec written: not yet | Approved: not yet | Shipped: not yet |
status in this repo. Nothing here is kept by hand — a system named in the record with nothing to match it fails the build, and a spec's first commit fills its first mark.Facts in this board’s data file are as of 2026-08-20; every state above is read from the repo at build time.