Design Round 8 · Deliverable 1 · The Field grammar, canonical · renders canon 2026-07-13 · July 13, 2026

# The Field — what the browser is to the web

Before any surface, the Field itself: the UI/UX convention for the Kinship Agency Protocol — always live, always connected, because the agentic internet never stops changing state. Scenes and their Portals (1a), the contextual HUD and its opacity, with ACTIONS appearing where you are (1b), the canonical rendering of each major node (1c), and what "never a static page" means as a felt quality (1d). Every surface in this round — Studio, Live, Express, TV — is this one grammar at a different distance.

1a

## A Scene is a realm; a Portal is a doorway with two ends

A Scene is a complete, attached realm inside the Field — bounded, owned, its edges are grants made visible. Moving between Scenes requires a Portal in each Scene: a doorway exists because both realms agreed to it. Portals stand at the edge (leaving toward a neighbor) or in the interior (a door someone placed on purpose). There is no URL bar, no back button, no teleport — you are always somewhere, and you got there through a door both sides hold.

Kiduna Club · commons
→ The Ceremony Machine
edge portal · member grant
Kidunaversity
interior portal
The Ceremony Machine · hall
← Kiduna Club
the same door's other end
Both ends, always. The door from Kiduna Club to The Ceremony Machine exists because each Scene holds its end. Either side can close its end; a closed end renders as a doorway gone dark, stated plainly — never an error. Entering is a plain tap or step; press-and-hold stays reserved for signatures.
portal anatomy
A pair, not a link. One Portal = two ends, one in each Scene, each end owned by its Scene's grants.
Edge or interior. Edge portals face neighbors — the standing geography. Interior portals are placed doors: a Project's room reachable from the hall, Kidunaversity from the commons.
The rim is sky. A Portal you can use breathes the sky rim. One you can't stands as shape only, and your ally can say why — a grant, stated, never a padlock icon.
Crossing is a drift. Ground temperature, Compute in play, and register change; the system never changes underneath. The ally band is the continuity object — unbroken across every crossing.
1b

## The contextual HUD — translucent by habit, opaque by choice

There is no "Field and Chat" split: chat lives inside the Field's contextual HUD. Four elements, unchanged from R6/R7 — container chip · ≤3 contextual chips · ally band · sky rims — plus one dial this round makes canonical: opacity. The HUD is translucent while you move; it goes opaque when you choose to focus on a conversation or an act, and the Field waits underneath, still live.

Kinship Duna · Kiduna Club
greet Crystal enter Kidunaversity
Taro — Crystal arrived a minute ago, through your invitation's door
Translucent. The resting state: chips and band sit at 55–70% ground, the place reads through them. Chips rank by distance then consequence; width buys longer labels, never more chips.
HUD · opaque · the Field waits release ↓
Two things happened while you were away. Most consequential first: the Fellowship of Play proposal you seconded passed — cited to its Record. And Elias asked to connect RenderDeck to the Lightbrush Project.
Show me the RenderDeck ask where it stands.
the Field, underneath, still live — nothing paused
Opaque. The focus state — chosen, never seized. The thread takes near-full ground for careful words or a signature; the Field keeps running underneath and takes back its light the moment you release.
action · for Moto
Elias asks to connect RenderDeck here. It would read this room's Records at member level.
grant it not now
Taro — this is the one thing waiting on you in this room
ACTIONS appear where you are. Addressed to one member, two sentences of what and why, the access consequence in the label, the act plus "not now." They stand at their objects; the Docket remains a projection your ally can speak, never an inbox, never a badge.
1c

## The eight nodes — how each looks and behaves as a thing in the Field

Every major node of the graph has exactly one canonical Field rendering. The rule underneath all eight: containers are places, people are presences, connections you can stand inside are rooms. Every action anyone takes happens inside an Organization, as a member of it; anything not in a specific one is in Kinship Duna by default.

@moto
presence is position, never a green dot
Member
A presence with a handle, standing somewhere. The Source to exactly one ally — only a Source directs an ally. Where they are and what they're near is honest; no timers, no status auras.
moto ⇄ swyx · in Kinship Duna
Relationship
A node, not an edge — a small room exactly two people can stand inside, holding what each shares and learns. Per-Organization: the same two people have a different room in Fellowship of Play than in Safeword. Its Record is the single source of truth; every surface is a projection.
a circle on open ground · 3+
Community
Three or more members as a standing circle — a gathering place with a name, drawn with a dashed edge because nothing is signed. It has conversation and shared context, not a wallet. When a Community formalizes, it becomes an Alliance and the edge turns solid.
Service Alliance · table + shared wallet
Alliance
A formalized Community: solid edge, a table at the center — the multi-sig wallet and the proposals/policies that govern it, each citable. Proposals stand at the table as objects; your Envoy can sit here for you, under your instruction.
Lightbrush LLC · KYB with the registered agent
Institution
A non-DUNA legal entity with a presence here: squared corners, a counter, a nameplate stating what its registration traces to. KYB runs through the Organization's registered agent — no third-party service. It can pay its members' Compute as a group and enter agreements; the agreement Records hang at the counter.
workbench → earned room · same address
Project
Born a workbench with a stable Scene identity and Field address; a materialized room is earned by scale or complexity (ruling 1). Purpose verbatim, members with stated grants, connected tools each marked registered or unregistered, all Records cited, state derived — never declared.
the grounds · everything above lives within
Organization
The grounds themselves — the legal container every Relationship, Community, Alliance, and Project lives within. The word is always "Organization" in member-facing copy. Its hall holds the authoritative Record; gold happens only here, when work enters or changes that Record. Its gold-rimmed heart is the one place the ring lights.
kap://eco.kinship.net
Ecosystem
The ground itself — the server your client is connected to, never rendered as an object you walk past. You feel it as horizon and address: kap://eco.domain.net in the container chip's long-press detail. Crossing ecosystems is the longest drift there is.

Agents render by type, unchanged from prior rounds: your Ally is the band and the voice, never a body you outrank; Actors are figures with functions and routines; Sentinels are felt only as effects; Envoys appear seated where they represent you — at Alliance tables and Forums; Operators run the Forums and render there. All communication runs member → ally → ally → member.

1d

## Never a static page — what "always live" is made of

the four liveness facts
State arrives; it is never fetched. The agentic internet changes state whether you watch or not. A Scene you're standing in updates as its graph updates — a Record lands, a Portal dims, an Actor finishes a routine — each announced by light, cited on touch.
Absence is compressed, not lost. Return after any interval and the ally tells you what happened, most consequential first, sized to the gap. The Field shows the now; the ally carries the meanwhile.
Motion means state. The only standing animations are state being true: a package breathing in flight, a Portal rim breathing because it will respond. Nothing moves to entertain; nothing pulses for attention.
Disconnection is stated as weather. A client that loses its ecosystem renders the ground dimming and the band saying so — the Field never pretends a cached page is the world. Reconnection is a sunrise, not a reload.
The web's page is a document you request. The Field's Scene is a place that continues. That single difference — continuation — is why the Field is the convention for KAP the way the browser is for HTTP.

Others will build apps and games on KAP; the Field is the canonical interface, and these four facts are its floor. A KAP client that renders static snapshots is not rendering the Field.