Basis Project Index
Question
What is Basis, what experiments are running, what are the plans, and how is it going?
Short answer
Basis is the local spec-state research line for turning messy prose specifications into structured, provenance-backed, reviewable state. It sits between llm-readable-spec-files, context-engineering, work-management-primitives, and formal-methods-for-agent-harnesses: specifications should remain readable to humans, but their durable authority should live in explicit records, evidence, acceptance boundaries, and projections.
The project is not one repo. It is a cluster:
| Surface | Role | Status |
|---|---|---|
basis | Elixir/BEAM core for live reducer and imaginer state | clean, tests/compile pass, format gate currently red |
basis-hermes | Hermes plugin and dashboard bridge for deterministic reducer/validator tools | clean, Python and JS gates pass |
basis-jcode | Jcode-native headless reducer/control-plane experiment | ahead and dirty, tests pass, raw runs private |
steward | benchmark-first spec-code grounding project | design seed; empirical pressure path, not Basis runtime |
This corner is public-safe synthesis. It does not publish .basis run bodies, prompts, raw packets, event streams, logs, private corpus material, or dashboard payloads. The point is to keep the signal without laundering the private workshop floor into public prose.
Navigation
- basis-reduce-workbench — recovered Basis.Reduce workbench, UI artifacts, control-gate status, and spec-pathology experiment lane.
- basis-imagine-workbench — recovered Basis.Imagine workbench, future-tradeoff UI, app-server-backed lenses, and proposal-only caveats.
- basis-architecture-and-plans — architecture, planned boundaries, and near-term work.
- basis-experiment-status — experiments currently running or implied by repo state.
- basis-source-basis-and-safety-gate — evidence table, safety boundary, and publication rules.
- spec-dataset-evolution-research-project and spec-deep-dive-index — corpus and spec-code research pressure feeding this line of work.
Current rollup
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is the core idea coherent? | Yes. The core Basis spec is precise: Markdown can bootstrap and project state, but accepted structured records are the intended authority. |
| What works today? | Core source/run surfaces exist; basis-hermes exposes deterministic reduction/validation; basis-jcode can run a headless control-plane loop with tests and a local dashboard. |
| What is the cleanest surface? | basis-hermes, because it is clean, test-passing, and installed as the Hermes plugin surface. |
| What is the richest experiment? | basis-jcode self-convergence, because it exercises ledgers, worker packets, validation, UI projection, and acceptance decisions. |
| What is the main caution? | The richest evidence is inside private .basis run trees and dashboard state; public pages should summarize architecture/counts, not bodies. |
| What is currently red? | Core basis still needs consolidation; the recovered reducer pathology study is untracked, and the imaginer worktree is dirty with a large active diff. |
| What was missing from the wiki? | basis-reduce-workbench and basis-imagine-workbench, now recovered from Codex logs/worktrees with generated UI artifacts and safety caveats. |
Why this matters
Ordinary specs decay because prose becomes authority by accident. Basis tries to separate:
- source topology: files, sections, ranges, hashes;
- execution topology: workers, forks, packets, events;
- semantic topology: claims, constraints, assumptions, interfaces, conflicts, accepted decisions;
- projection topology: Markdown, dashboards, tests, proof obligations, code-facing views.
That separation is the system’s taste. Collapse it and the project becomes a very elaborate note-taking app with opinions. Preserve it and Basis becomes a custody mechanism for specification meaning.
Relationship to adjacent work
- spec-dataset-evolution-research-project provides empirical pressure: real repositories have many spec-like surfaces, varying authority levels, and uneven code connection.
- spec-deep-dive-index supplies public-safe cases for how specs connect to code, tests, standards, and agent-native scaffolds.
- evaluation-and-review-loops supplies the discipline: proposed records need gates, not merely confidence.
- safety-and-permissions supplies the publication boundary: private run artifacts stay private unless explicitly reviewed.
- hermes-agent is the integration context for the
basis-hermesplugin.
Status sentence
As of 2026-05-11, Basis is an active spec-code reducer/control-plane line with one clean Hermes bridge, a reducer workbench branch whose recent review/decision UI commits are tracked, an untracked but substantial spec-pathology experiment lane, and a dirty imaginer worktree that has separate future-tradeoff/architecture surfaces but must remain proposal-only until reviewed.