Tinkery

The big idea

Tinkery is a calm substrate where a messy thought becomes useful, checked agent work, without losing your words or your control. Nothing runs without you: one next step, with a way out.

The journey

Think → Tend → Shape → Approve → work happens → Watch → Taste → Measure

Place	Purpose
Think	Clarify what you want: one reading, one question at a time.
Tend	Choose a saved goal and open its detail.
Shape	Run Seed Me's interview to turn the goal into a seed.
Approve	Understand the decision and exactly what you're authorizing.
Watch	See progress, blockers and decisions needing your attention.
Taste	Compare the result with your original goal; accept or correct it.
Measure	Judge accepted, checked results against your effort.

This is the intended journey, not all shipped behavior. Originals remain verbatim; confirmed goals stay unchanged through handoffs. Readings and suggestions are guesses.

What Tinkery builds on

• Seed Me keeps saved goals, working briefs and separate decisions.
• SDLC organizes external implementation, checks and review.
• GitHub holds issues, PRs, checks and reviews.
• You authorize work and judge results.

Tinkery connects those records; it doesn't invent a competing set of approvals.

Goal confirmation, brief confirmation and implementation approval are separate. Copying a prompt authorizes none of them and starts no agent. Voice is local dictation.

What works today

• Think: clarify a dump and explicitly save the confirmed goal, unchanged, to ~/.local/share/seed-me/sessions/ with a record in ~/.local/share/tinkery/think/. When started in Git, the menu names the repository and the record keeps its origin.
• Tend: active goals form a needs graph. Link or unlink goals, open detail, or copy continuation prompts for Claude, Codex or Pi without changing Seed Me sessions. Press r in detail for Think history when its saved record verifies.
• Shape: press s in goal detail or choose menu place 3 to see the current question, waiting draft or verified ready seed. With real drafting set up (terminal setup), --shape-budget CALLS (default zero) allows agent steps. F2 saves an answer and lets an agent investigate the next with read-only tools; F3 confirms the seed in your words once you've read it to the end. Under --operator agent Shape only reads. F5 shows the whole goal and decisions. F7 objects to a default the step assumed; on a hard-to-undo question, F9 shows the options and suggestion after your instinct. F6 twice completes a session whose seed is ready; F8 twice stops one still being shaped.
• Approve: menu place 4 shows verified seeds, oldest first, with their exact goal and acceptance checks. c copies run creation and intake commands; nothing runs. See Approve. Started seeds remain until the join is built.
• Measure: reads an existing ledger report or says unavailable.

Watch and Taste aren't built. The complete journey and its benefit remain unproven.

Where we’re going next

1. Verify permanent SDLC run identity; recreating a run name must not reuse its identity.
2. Explicitly confirm the connection from a saved goal to that exact run, never guessing from names.
3. Use one shared reader to verify identities and bring back current evidence.

This binding design is an unaccepted, unimplemented proposal. Its first binding is immutable and detects duplicates; changes and relocation are deferred.

Absorbing useful Substrate responsibilities is planned, not complete; Measure still uses its ledger. See the first-release plan and task index. Published tasks are not implementation permission; unpublished ideas belong in the parked backlog.

What success means

Useful, verified changes per hour of your attention, not more agents or code. Active effort is not elapsed time; passing checks is not your acceptance. Unknown evidence stays unknown. Improvement needs a separately permitted baseline and trial; it is not a measured claim.

Try it

Fresh Debian or Ubuntu clone:

./scripts/cloud-setup.sh
export PATH="${CARGO_HOME:-$HOME/.cargo}/bin:$PWD/.cloud-tools/node/bin:$PATH"
cargo +stable run --locked -- --home

Think is practice: no model calls or saved goals. Tend writes needs only when you explicitly link or unlink. F2 sends, Enter adds a line, F1 helps, F10 returns to the menu. Add --snapshot for text output.

Real drafting requires --shape-pi --model provider/model-id --seed-me PATH and an explicitly authorized budget; provider charges may apply. --help lists options. Terminal setup gives an isolated trial.

Read next

• Constitution: governing principles.
• Working guide: macOS setup, verification and contribution rules.
• Design: decisions and marked proposals.

GPL-3.0-only; see LICENSE.