Files
typewriter/CONTEXT.md
Julien Calixte b7a0aa7c5c docs: add "Durability before delivery" principle to Publish UX
The user-meaningful moment of a Publish is when the local commit
lands (~0.2 s), not when the push completes (~5–10 s). New principle
in CONTEXT.md, instantiated in v0.1 product doc with staged status
transitions and a corrected on-demand Wi-Fi status example.
2026-05-17 12:54:09 +02:00

115 lines
5.6 KiB
Markdown
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters
This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.
# Typoena
A single-purpose writing appliance: e-ink + mechanical keyboard + ESP32-S3. The
user opens the lid, writes Markdown, and (when they choose) publishes to a git
remote. This glossary fixes the language of that workflow.
**Related docs:**
[`README.md`](README.md) — project overview, hardware, macro roadmap.
[`docs/adr.md`](docs/adr.md) — load-bearing decisions; **ADR-010** is the
formal record of the **Publish** UX defined below.
[`docs/qfd.md`](docs/qfd.md) — requirements ↔ functions ↔ components, ranked
by user-facing weight. References the terms in this file as canonical.
[`docs/v0.1-mvp-product.md`](docs/v0.1-mvp-product.md) — the v0.1 product
surface, expressed in this vocabulary.
[`docs/v0.1-mvp-technical.md`](docs/v0.1-mvp-technical.md) — how v0.1 is
built.
[`docs/roadmap.md`](docs/roadmap.md) — per-version scope, where new terms
(e.g. multi-file **Buffer** concepts at v0.5) will enter this glossary.
## Language
### File scopes
**Tracked**:
A file that lives in the device's git working copy and can be published to the
remote. Lives under `/sd/repo/`.
_Avoid_: synced, public, remote, committable.
**Local**:
A file that exists only on the device and can never be published. A
permanently-private scope, not a draft staging area — files are born Local and
stay Local for their lifetime. Lives under `/sd/local/`.
_Avoid_: draft, private, untracked, scratch (these all imply impermanence or
promotability, which is not the model).
### User-facing actions
**Save**:
The act of durably writing the current buffer to the SD card. Triggered by
`Ctrl-S`. Applies to both **Tracked** and **Local** files.
_Avoid_: write, flush, persist (use them only in implementation talk).
**Publish**:
The atomic act of pushing the current state of the entire **Tracked** working
copy to the git remote. Workspace-scoped, not buffer-scoped: a **Publish**
ships every dirty **Tracked** file on the device, not just the one the user is
viewing. Triggered by `Ctrl-G`. Internally: stage all → commit with a
timestamp message → push → on push failure, pull (merge, no-edit) → push
again. Unavailable in **Local**.
_Avoid_: push, commit, sync, upload, git-push (these leak transport details
into user-facing language).
> **Commit** is deliberately _not_ a user-facing term. The device authors all
> commit messages itself (ISO-8601 timestamp); the user never sees a commit
> prompt. A **Publish** is the only user-observable unit of "shipping work";
> internal commits are an implementation detail of that.
## Relationships
- A **File** belongs to exactly one scope (**Tracked** or **Local**), fixed at
creation. There is no operation that moves a file between scopes.
- **Save** applies to any **File**; **Publish** applies only to **Tracked**.
- A single **Publish** is atomic from the user's view: a Wi-Fi failure or
remote divergence surfaces as a single retry-able outcome, not as a multi-
step progression the user has to reason about.
## Example dialogue
> **Dev:** "If I'm in a **Local** file and I press `Ctrl-G`, what happens?"
> **Domain expert:** "Nothing — **Publish** is unavailable in **Local**. The
> status line says so. There is no path from **Local** to the remote."
> **Dev:** "So if I want to publish something that started as a journal entry,
> I have to copy-paste it into a **Tracked** file?"
> **Domain expert:** "Yes, deliberately. Promotion is a manual gesture, not a
> built-in operation."
> **Dev:** "And if the remote has changed since I last pulled — does
> **Publish** fail?"
> **Domain expert:** "It pulls (merge, no edit) and pushes again. From the
> user's view it's one action with one outcome — success or retry."
## Principles
- **The device is a writing tool, not a sync engine.** Every git operation is
the direct, in-session consequence of a `Ctrl-G` the user pressed. The
device does not auto-publish, auto-pull, retry-on-boot, or otherwise
reconcile remote state in the background. If a previous **Publish** ended
mid-flight and left a local commit unpushed, the next user-initiated
**Publish** picks it up; until then, the device is silent about it.
- **Publish is sync, not history.** The user's mental model is a Google Doc
that happens to be backed by git: the point is "I want to read this on my
phone later," not "I want a curated commit log." Commits are a transport
detail the device authors itself. Branches are out of scope for the same
reason — the device tracks one linear stream of work on whichever branch
the remote was cloned on, and never switches.
- **Durability before delivery.** A **Publish**'s user-meaningful moment is
when the local commit lands (~0.2 s), not when the push completes
(~510 s). The status line surfaces the commit-landed state as soon as
it exists; the remaining push time is the transport of an already-safe
thing. Long-form rationale:
[`docs/notes/ctrl-g-perceived-latency.md`](docs/notes/ctrl-g-perceived-latency.md).
- **No state the user didn't ask for.** No banners about pending work, no
prompts about divergence, no "did you mean to publish" warnings. The status
line reflects the _current_ action's outcome, nothing else.
## Flagged ambiguities
- "Local" was initially ambiguous between (a) a draft pen that gets promoted,
(b) a permanently-private scope, (c) a second git repo, (d) `.gitignore`'d
files inside the working copy. Resolved: (b). Each **File**'s scope is fixed
at creation; there is no promotion operation.
- "Commit" was used loosely across early docs as if it were a user-facing
action. Resolved: it is not. The user has **Save** and **Publish**. Commits
are an internal unit inside **Publish**, never authored or named by the
user.