How it fits together

Two pictures. An organization and what surrounds it, then the rooms inside.

What we make says what gets built, and In detail says how each part works. This page is the map between them: first the whole thing as one box with the world around it, then that box opened.

Everything inside the dashed line belongs to the owner: software shared outright, on machines built from declarations the owner holds. A declaration is a written description that a machine follows to build itself. The rooms carry house names here. In an actual installation they take whatever names the owner gives them.

One. The estate, and the world around it

People on the left, other people's systems on the right. The arrows are everything that crosses the line, and each one says what crosses.

The estate identity · money · platforms knowledge · buildings software shared outright with its owner, on machines built from declarations the owner holds opened up in picture two PEOPLE The owner and staff run the organization run it, read the books The people it serves families, members, tenants enrol, pay, see what is theirs A visitor on the public site asks; answered from its own facts Ploutos Services one person, with AI models builds it · drives it if asked OTHER PEOPLE'S SYSTEMS Sign-in providers accounts people already own who is this person? Banks and custodians card issuers, counterparties statements arrive as files Email bills, invoices, notices forwarded mail files itself Payment processor cards and bank transfers payment taken online Device makers' clouds where a maker allows no other way commands out, history copied in A hosted model reads scanned paper scanned pages only
Rounded boxes are people; square ones are systems somebody else runs. The dashed arrow is the optional one — we build it, and drive it only for as long as the owner wants. The gold arrow is the one place the content of a document goes to somebody else's model: a scanned page is sent to a hosted model to be read. Private questions never take that road; the question boxes are answered by a model on hardware the owner holds.

Two. The rooms inside

The same box, opened. Each room is a separate piece of running software with one job, and an arrow is one room asking another for something — labelled with what it asks for.

THE ESTATE — EVERYTHING INSIDE THIS LINE BELONGS TO ITS OWNER The owner and staff The people it serves sign in with accounts they already own Gatehouse every person is asked who they are · on private links every application shows its own certificate Sign-in providers who is this person? Concierge answers a question in plain words, and shows where from Library the owner's records as private websites, edited by the owner Counting House books generated from the records, rebuildable any time Steward's Office sign-up, payment, calendars, reports — run by the people served Keeper's Lodge one door in front of a building and every device in it A visitor asks, no sign-in Devices a device and a verb Makers' clouds where no other way only what this reader may see live figures when a page opens private questions stay here documents become records serves bytes it cannot read a reading every minute The Model runs on hardware the owner holds Archive every file kept once, pointed at from every room Mailroom documents arrive, are read, and file themselves Strongroom sealed to its owner's key; opened only in the reader's browser Logbook what the building made and drew, kept by the owner files Banks · email statements, bills statements, bills and forwarded mail arrive as files A hosted model reads scanned paper scanned pages only: the one document that goes to an outside model UNDERNEATH EVERY ROOM ABOVE Key Cabinet every secret kept once; asked for, never copied Engine Room every machine built from a declaration the owner holds Watchtower checks and alerts; backups proved by restoring them Almanac everything says it exists; one address answers for all
White rooms are what people use and what those rooms keep their things in; the navy ones serve every room and are drawn underneath rather than wired to each. The visitor's arrow goes round the Gatehouse on purpose: the public question box needs no sign-in, and it answers only from what is already public. Payment and the rest of the outside world are in picture one.

The rooms, by name

What each room is, and the published software it stands on where there is some. Each one is described in full under In detail.

Room
What it is
Built with · read more
Gatehouse
Sign-in with accounts people already own, and a certificate for every application, so each call on a private link proves both who is asking and what is calling.
A private certificate authority; Let's Encrypt for public names · Identity & access
Concierge
A question box over the organization's own material. It answers each reader only from what that reader may see, and cites the page.
A full-text index over the owner's corpus · Knowledge & AI
Library
Agreements, registries, licences, properties — as private websites the owner edits, with access declared once and enforced on save.
Knowledge & AI
Counting House
The owner records what happened; the double-entry books are generated from it, per entity and per currency, and checked against what the bank says.
PostgreSQL, MariaDB · Money
Steward's Office
The people an organization serves sign up, pay and read what is theirs, in a world of their own that never mixes with another.
Platforms · running now at vidyalaya.org
Keeper's Lodge
One door in front of a building: a caller names a device and a verb, and the result is read back from the device.
Buildings
The Model
A language model on a machine the owner holds, so a private question is answered without leaving the building.
Ollama · Knowledge & AI
Archive
Every file stored once and pointed at from many places. Delete one pointer and the others still work.
MinIO, Seafile · The machinery
Mailroom
Watches for documents, reads them — scanned paper included — and turns them into records without anyone retyping.
Money
Strongroom
The most sensitive documents, sealed to the household's own key. The server stores bytes it has no way to read.
Money
Logbook
What the building produced and drew, taken on the building's own network and kept by its owner, so it can be put next to a bill.
Buildings
Key Cabinet
One vault for every credential. A room asks for a secret by name and holds nothing, and every read is recorded.
Vaultwarden · Identity & access
Engine Room
Every machine described, not administered, and rebuilt from that description. A private source forge and scheduler live here.
Ansible, Gitea, Docker · The machinery
Watchtower
More than half of everything automatic exists to watch the rest: checks, alerts that can be read back, and backups proved by loading them.
Prometheus, Grafana, Mattermost · The machinery
Almanac
Everything declares that it exists and where it can be reached, and one address answers for all of it.
The machinery

These are the rooms that have been built, not a floor plan to be bought whole.

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