passepartout/docs/ux.org

User Experience (UX) Journey

• Overview
• 1. The Zero-to-One Experience (Onboarding)
  • Goal
  • The Appliance Paradigm (Primary Path)
  • The Interactive Wizard
• 2. The First Contact (The CLI Gateway)
  • Goal
  • The Interaction
  • Behind the Scenes
• 3. The Interactive Refinement (v0.2.0)
  • Goal
  • Features
• 4. The Continuous Loop (Daily Usage)

Overview

This document traces the intended User Experience (UX) journey for the opencortex. It serves as a living design document to ensure that architectural decisions align with a frictionless, autonomous, and intuitive user interaction model.

1. The Zero-to-One Experience (Onboarding)

Goal

A user should be able to go from discovering the project to having a running, calibrated agent in under 3 minutes, with zero prerequisite knowledge of Lisp.

The Appliance Paradigm (Primary Path)

The user runs a single command in their terminal:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gharbeia/opencortex/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

The Interactive Wizard

The script verifies Docker presence and then launches an interactive prompt before booting the container:

1. Identity: "What is your name?" -> Configures $MEMEX_USER
2. Assistant: "What shall we name your Assistant?" -> Configures $MEMEX_ASSISTANT
3. Neural Provider: "Select your primary neural provider [Gemini/OpenRouter/Anthropic/OpenAI]" -> Configures API Keys.
4. Data Gravity: "Where is your Memex located?" -> Maps the host directory to the Docker container.

Outcome: The `.env` is generated, core skills are seeded into the user's Memex, and `docker-compose up -d` launches the daemon in the background. The user sees: "Booting your autonomous brain in the background…"

2. The First Contact (The CLI Gateway)

Goal

Immediately after boot, the user needs a way to verify the agent is alive and capable of answering questions about their Memex without configuring complex third-party integrations (like Telegram bots).

The Interaction

The user types a local client command to connect to the background daemon:

opencortex chat

This opens a slick, colorful interactive terminal session:

> User: Hello, what are my active projects?
> Agent: [Thinking...]
> Agent: You currently have 3 active projects:
>        1. OpenCortex v1.0
>        2. Home Renovation
>        3. Read 'The Autonomous Individual'

Behind the Scenes

1. The opencortex chat client connects to the daemon's local port (e.g., 9105).
2. It sends a :chat-message signal.
3. The core harness routes this to the Probabilistic Engine.
4. The Context Manager retrieves active projects from the Memex AST.
5. The Deterministic Engine (Bouncer) verifies it is a safe read-only action.
6. The :cli Actuator formats the Lisp response into Markdown and sends it back over the socket.

3. The Interactive Refinement (v0.2.0)

Goal

Transition from a "Verified Wrapper" around netcat to a high-fidelity, native Common Lisp TUI that rivals the experience of gemini-cli.

Features

• Homoiconic UI: The TUI is rendered directly by the Lisp kernel, allowing for live introspection of the agent's thoughts.
• Rich Formatting: ANSI colors, bold headers, and syntax-highlighted code blocks.
• Command Palette: Slash commands for system control without leaving the chat.

4. The Continuous Loop (Daily Usage)

(To be defined as the agent's capabilities expand into Scribe, Gardener, and Emacs-native interactions).