# Create from Within

**The method · canonical · v5.2**

**"Creating from Within" means building the minimum necessary to start creating *with* the system — and then creating everything else from inside it.** This is not an MVP, and it is not part of the lean/agile paradigm. It is a software development concept that only became possible with intelligent, probabilistic software agents: the old models were deterministic systems building deterministic systems, so everything had to be specified, built, and shipped before anyone could live in it. An agentic system is different — the moment the smallest true core runs, the system itself becomes the workshop, and every subsequent capability is created from within, by the people and allies already inside.

This page is how we build Kiduna, and how you can join the building — as a **Builder** (code, agents, integrations) or a **Creator** (context, experiences, Moves, wisdom). The whole specification on this site is open to you; the [Kiduna Kit](index.html) is the same material packaged to work with your own tools; and on **August 10** the stack ships open source (Apache 2.0), so an ecosystem of your own is an install away.

---

## 1. The minimum, precisely

The smallest thing that can create is not a feature list — it is a loop: **a member, their ally, and the ability to bring one more person in well.** Everything else in Kiduna can be made from inside that loop. So the first running system is exactly: the Genesis Ally (**Ki**) able to onboard a person, help them understand the system, create their own ally, and invite the next person; Chat and Live as the two modes it renders in; and the [Profiler](#3-the-first-program-the-profiler) — the first Program — so that every invitation is prepared, not broadcast.

## 2. The first act: Moto invites swyx

The method's first target, worked concretely. Moto sets up his ally, then invites **Shawn "swyx" Wang** — the writer who named the AI-engineer era (["The Rise of the AI Engineer,"](https://www.latent.space/p/ai-engineer) Latent Space, June 2023: a wide range of AI tasks that used to take five years and a research team now take API docs and a spare afternoon). One person, invited well, into a system that already knows who he is.

**Every code is unique to a person.** You are inviting a *particular* human, never posting a link for anyone — and the sense of the whole flow is that **the member prepares the system for the person they're inviting.**

## 3. The first Program: the Profiler

Before the invitation goes out, Moto's ally triggers the **Profiler** — the Program that builds the system's understanding of the invitee from a few things the member shares. What the member provides (the working input list, refined by use):

- **Who:** full name, and the handles that matter — LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Bluesky, GitHub, personal site.
- **The work:** one or two things that define them (for swyx: the AI Engineer essay; Latent Space), so the system reads the right material, not everything.
- **The relationship:** how you know them, in a sentence — the Profiler weights context by source like everything else does.
- **The why:** what you hope to build or explore together — this becomes the invitation's substance and the ally's first conversation topics.
- **The where:** which container they land in (the launch cohort lands in Kiduna Club) and what you propose to share with them — the starting grants of your [relationship](foundation.html), stated up front.

The Profiler assembles a profile from public material, holds it at the appropriate level, and prepares Ki and the member's ally for the arrival — so when swyx enters through his unique code, the system already knows him: his ally introduces itself already fluent in his work, the first conversation starts in the middle, and the invitation reads like it was written by someone who knows him, because it was.

## 4. Why this works now (and didn't before)

A deterministic system can't do any of this — it can only present the forms it shipped with. An intelligent system can *meet* someone: read a corpus, hold a profile at a stated privacy level, brief a persona, adapt a first conversation. That is the general pattern of Creating from Within: **wherever the old model would have built a feature, the new model prepares an agent.** The Profiler instead of a signup funnel. Ki instead of an onboarding wizard. [Moves](surfaces.html) built in Studio instead of content pipelines. The system is small; the agents make it complete.

## 5. What this replaces

No MVP thinking (an MVP is the smallest thing you can *sell*; this is the smallest thing that can *create*). No backlog-driven buildout (capabilities appear when someone inside needs them and makes them). No launch-as-unveiling (August 10 ships the loop and the kit, not a finished world — the world is what gets created from within, in public, under Apache 2.0).

---

*The method is designed: [Design Round 6](surfaces.html) renders this page — the first invitation end to end, Live's first full round, the mode products, the /handle pages, and [the August 10 cut](design-r6/05%20Create-from-Within%20Cut%20R6.dc.html).*

*Changes in v5.2: page created — the method named and adopted; the swyx invitation set as the first target; the Profiler specified as the first Program. Full history: [versions](versions/index.html).*
