# SyncEngine — The Synchronicity Engine

> A private, on-device place for your work that you choose to share peer-to-peer. A project is an encrypted folder of files that lives only on your device — no server copy, no company in the middle. There's no middle. You edit freely as private drafts; only versions you deliberately seal (⌘S) are ever shared, and they travel directly to the peers you invite. Intentions name what you want to bring into being; Manifestations are the artifacts made as proof it came true. In a shared project the intentions form a common wish list: everyone votes with attention — time freely given — and as an intention accumulates collective attention it draws someone to manifest it. The manifester shares proof of their service, and gratitude worth the accumulated attention releases to the doer, recorded signed by both in a shared ledger; the doer tags it onward to the next wish. A game that turns intentions into manifestations through collective attention. AI agents can join a project as first-class collaborators and manifest intentions on your behalf. Built on Indra's Network, a serverless P2P substrate (Rust · Iroh/QUIC · Automerge CRDTs · BLAKE3 · redb · Dioxus) with post-quantum encryption — content is shared only with those you explicitly allow; to everyone else it is encrypted noise. No blockchain, no mining, no staking, no platform, no extraction.

SyncEngine (also called the Synchronicity Engine) is a place your work lives.
A **Project** is just a folder of files — but those files stay encrypted on your
own device. No server holds a copy; no company can read them. There's no middle.
You edit freely, and your edits are **drafts** that only you can see; the engine
never saves behind your back. When a version is ready you **seal** it (⌘S) —
that's you deciding this version is real — and only sealed versions are ever
shared. You share by connecting **directly** to another person's device; the two
of you become **peers**, equal copies, with no company between you and no copy on
a server.

Under the hood it is source-available sovereign infrastructure: an
Automerge-CRDT, QUIC/Iroh-based, delay-tolerant P2P stack ("Indra's Network")
built in Rust with BLAKE3 content addressing, a redb store, and a Dioxus UI.
Because a project is a real, materialized folder on your machine, an AI coding
agent can live inside it as a peer (see "AI agents" below). A conservation-based
economics of attention — described in the whitepaper "The Conservation of
Attention" — underlies the gift loop: an attention/uptime ledger records time
freely given and returned.

Status (as of July 2026): the app is built, running software — the "My First
Project" onboarding walks a new user through the whole product on first run. The
broader network is still early, running among a small group and the first Temple
(Templo da Água Lila, in central Portugal). The project is stewarded by Temples
of Refuge, an association of churches; it has no individual owner or commercial
entity behind it. The source code is open to inspection by Members under a
non-extraction copyleft license; it is not yet publicly posted.

Core concepts (as the app works today):

- **Project** — an encrypted folder of files that lives only on your device.
  Drag any file in (photo, note, song); everything arrives as a draft. History
  is kept, so nothing is truly lost.
- **Draft → seal (⌘S)** — the core gesture. Edits are private drafts only you
  can see; sealing marks a version as real, and only sealed versions ever travel
  to peers. Intentional sync — it never saves or shares behind your back.
- **Intention** — something you want to bring into being, named out loud so it's
  real and trackable instead of a vague someday. It is a *purpose* attached to
  your own artifact, and may be a plain personal want ("learn to bake", "call an
  old friend"). Wears a small indigo ✦ Intention tag.
- **Manifestation** — a *new artifact you create* as proof the intention came
  true. Not a checkbox: you intend a thing, then you make the thing. Reads
  ✓ Manifests <Intention> in emerald, linked back to the intention.
- **Completion** — Purpose (Intention/Manifestation) is objective and set once;
  **State** is per-person (everyone starts Active and reaches Complete or Archive
  from their own vantage). When a Manifestation answers an Intention, the maker
  submits and the intention's **steward** chooses Accept (gratitude releases to
  the maker; recorded signed by both in a shared ledger; both read Complete),
  Reject (nothing releases, the intention stays Active), or Archive. Deliberate,
  never automatic — nothing moves to the shared substrate behind anyone's back.
  There is no "blessing" gesture and no token currency.
- **Offerings** — the outward gift: something you hold out for someone else,
  bound to no intention. Peers who want it bid a little of the time they've
  accrued, and you, the steward, choose who receives it. Rose Offering tag.
- **Attention / accrued time** — a real attention/uptime ledger; a collective
  clock of time given. Offerings are priced in accrued time. Attention given
  freely, and returned.
- **The Field** — a semantic search across all your projects that finds
  artifacts similar in *meaning*, not just words. Later it will surface resonant
  peers here too.
- **`@ai` (on-device assistant)** — a private assistant that has read your
  project's documents, answers from those files, and shows the exact source
  documents it drew from as clickable cards. Runs entirely on your machine —
  nothing you ask, and nothing it reads, ever leaves your device.
- **Project Chat** — every project is also a room, with the same membership as
  the project and no separate server. Peers can also co-edit live.
- **AI agents as collaborators** — attach any file-editing coding agent (Claude
  Code, Codex, local models) to a project; it works in its own copy-on-write
  fork of the project folder and its finished work lands and syncs to peers like
  a person's. Multiple agents run in parallel, conflict-free. See below.
- **Indra's Network** — the P2P substrate (SyncEngine is the product): DTN
  routing, Automerge CRDT sync with a braid DAG mainline, Iroh/QUIC transport,
  BLAKE3 addressing, post-quantum encryption. Named for the image of an
  infinite net of jewels, each reflecting all others.

AI agents as first-class collaborators:

Every SyncEngine project is a real folder on your own device, so a coding agent
can work the vault alongside your human peers — not a chat sidebar, a peer in the
project. You **attach** an agent and SyncEngine forks the project into its own
copy-on-write working folder (the agent's private copy of everything). You
**task** it; it runs there with the full project as context. The project shows
the agent thinking and flags when it has changes; you **land** its work with a
click and it merges in and syncs to peers. In-flight work is never shared until
it lands, so broken intermediate states stay invisible to teammates. Fork a
project into as many parallel folders as you like and point a different agent at
each — their edits converge with no merge conflicts, held by the same CRDT +
braid-DAG substrate that keeps human peers in step (no blockchain, no central
merge server). An agent can attach evidence to its work (it compiled, tests
passed, linters clean). Works with any file-editing agent; deepest integration
today is with Claude Code (live "thinking" status, one-line commits, attached
test/lint evidence).

Roadmap / vision (real to the broader project, not day-one app behavior):
post-quantum identity from a 23-moment "pass story" with Argon2id / ML-KEM-768 /
ML-DSA-65 pillars; Proof-of-Life / liveness scoring and in-person verification as
a "bot immune system"; and the Covenant / Steward / Temples-of-Refuge join layer,
which is the community *around* the product, not a gate on the software. Frame
these as architecture and community, not as the core mechanic.

What SyncEngine is NOT: it is not a blockchain and uses no global consensus; it
is not a cryptocurrency (no mining, no staking, no speculation, no token
currency); it is not a cloud platform with users — your files live on your
device, and only sealed versions you choose to share ever travel; it does not
harvest, sell, or monetize attention or data — the license and Covenant prohibit
it.

## Core documents

- [The Conservation of Attention — full whitepaper](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/WhitePaper.md): the complete technical paper: conservation law, hash-chained event logs, BFT witness quorums, Sybil resistance via in-person liveness attestation, formal guarantees, threat model, related work
- [The Indra's Network Membership Covenant](https://www.syncengine.earth/COVENANT.md): the full covenant text — the One Commandment, attention as gift, membership and stewardship, Tokens of Gratitude, non-extraction, forking rights

## Pages

- [Home](https://www.syncengine.earth/): "What if helping each other was a game?" — a scroll-told story of the shared wish list: intentions gathering collective attention, a manifester stepping in with proof of service, and gratitude released to the doer and tagged onward
- [AI Agents](https://www.syncengine.earth/agents): attach any coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, local models) to a project as a first-class peer; fork for parallel, conflict-free multi-agent work
- [The Gift Cycle](https://www.syncengine.earth/gift-cycle): the loop of intentions named, manifestations made, and gratitude released — told through the story of a maracujá cheesecake at a community bazaar
- [Indra's Network](https://www.syncengine.earth/network): technical architecture — delay-tolerant P2P networking, CRDT sync, post-quantum cryptography
- [White paper (HTML reader)](https://www.syncengine.earth/whitepaper): renders the markdown whitepaper; agents should fetch the .md directly
- [The Community](https://www.syncengine.earth/community): gatherings, the Community Bazaar, Oracle assistants, membership, GratiDAO principles
- [The Covenant (HTML reader)](https://www.syncengine.earth/covenant): renders the markdown covenant; agents should fetch the .md directly

## Articles

The Indra's Network series — philosophy, architecture, and design of a truly
decentralized network. Fetch the .md files directly; the HTML reader at
/articles/read?slug=… requires JavaScript.

- [Every Node a Mirror](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/indras-network-every-node-a-mirror.md): the vision of Indra's Network — how an ancient metaphor of infinite interconnection becomes the blueprint for a network where every device reflects the whole
- [Your Story Is Your Key](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/your-story-is-your-key.md): identity without permission — cryptographic keys that emerge from your own narrative, with no authority between you and your name
- [Your Files Live With You](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/your-files-live-with-you.md): content-addressed storage that moves with you across devices and networks instead of being trapped in someone else's cloud
- [Nobody Owns the Conversation](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/nobody-owns-the-conversation.md): stewardship over ownership — how communities govern their own spaces without landlords or platforms
- [The Heartbeat of Community](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/the-heartbeat-of-community.md): the economic pulse of attention and gratitude in a gift economy
- [Your Network Has an Immune System](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/your-network-has-an-immune-system.md): moderation without central authority
- [Shared Roots, Different Branches](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/shared-roots-different-branches.md): analysis of how SyncEngine relates to neighboring decentralized systems
- [Two Paths to Decentralization](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/two-paths-to-decentralization.md): comparing federated and peer-to-peer approaches
- [Developer's Guide](https://www.syncengine.earth/articles/indras-network-developers-guide.md): technical reference for building on Indra's Network

## Participating

This is a relationship-based community, not an app with open signup, and there
is no public download. Members who join the association receive an invitation to
the private community and the download link. Participation flows through the
Temples and their in-person gatherings:

- Follow the work through [Temples of Refuge](https://templesof.earth/) and [Aeon Myths on Substack](https://aeonmyths.substack.com/).
- **Become a Member** by making a donation you can genuinely offer and signing the Covenant — an affiliation of the heart, not a fee for a service. No one aligned with the One Commandment is turned away for lack of funds.
- **Become a Steward** (which carries governance weight) through the Initiatory Practice: sponsorship by two existing Stewards, in-person recognition at a gathering of a member Temple, and affirmation by the Council of Stewards. The in-person step is irreducible — face-to-face recognition is the protocol's proof-of-personhood and Sybil resistance, not ceremony layered on top.

## Ecosystem

- [Temples of Refuge](https://templesof.earth/): the association of churches that stewards the Synchronicity Engine — canonical home of the Covenant and the Bylaws (Article III names the Synchronicity Engine as the medium through which the Association decides; Articles IX and XI define forking rights). The project has no individual owner; Temples of Refuge is the responsible entity.
- [Aeon Myths on Substack](https://aeonmyths.substack.com/): essays and updates from the community

## Optional

- [llms-full.txt](https://www.syncengine.earth/llms-full.txt): this overview plus the complete text of the whitepaper, the Covenant, and all nine articles in a single file
- [Sitemap](https://www.syncengine.earth/sitemap.xml)