Work in progress
The plan, in the open
This network is not finished, and publishing that is the point. Below is what is built, what is being built, in what order, and the list of things we have not decided yet — including the ones where we want your opinion.
Because “we’ll fix it later” is how families get quietly dropped, and because a plan you can read is a plan you can argue with. If something here sounds wrong to you, that is useful information, not criticism.
01The order of work
Deliberately sequenced. The rule: never move the data before the door is proven.
The film shelf
Films and television on the television, from our own shelf played by Jellyfin — 10.5 TB on our own disks. It is the thing that is live and in use today, and it answers from outside the house too, behind the same login as the rest of the site. The games machine runs, and the AI helpers answer on our own machines, but the family-facing parts of both are still being built.
The front door
The one login, the padlock, the guard, and the status page are up, and the login opens the film shelf — proven by an account signing in from outside the house, not by reading a settings file. What is not fitted yet is the break-glass account that works when the login itself is broken. That is a real gap, not a tidy-up.
The library
The shelves were rebuilt on new rooms, and the films, series, audiobooks and books were moved into them first, carefully. Every file was counted before and after, and the audiobooks and books that cannot be re-downloaded were byte-checked. Nothing was lost, which is the whole success condition.
Make real backups
The settings, the accounts, the save data, and the irreplaceable things — copied to somewhere that does not share a building with them. Both of our big machines are in the same building. Today we have none, and that is the most honest sentence on this site.
The mailroom
The finders, sorters and fetchers run, with a private route out and a switch that stops the route when the route is switched off — tested, not assumed. What is missing is not the machinery: it is the search accounts, the ones lost in the rebuild and held only in a person’s records. Until they are back, a search finds nothing, so the request page has no link.
Take the games layer into our own hands
The games control room moves off a borrowed panel and onto one we host, with our own accounts and our own logins. The games, the saves and the players are meant to be unaffected, and the move is scheduled with the person whose servers live there.
Build the playroom
The chat page for the AI helpers, the story corner with its own front door, the voice machine, and the game panel — with budgets and a kill switch fitted on the day each is switched on, not after the first runaway. The chat page already exists with no model wired to it, on purpose: connecting a model is a decision about cost and about who may ask. This is also where the second deep seat, Veronica, opens: two people asking at the same time.
The fun things
The voice reading our books aloud in a chosen voice. Agents doing chores with a budget and a stop button. The photo shelf, if the family wants it.
The library is the only part of this house that cannot be rebuilt, so it was moved once, carefully, with a snapshot taken first and a count afterwards. Everything else is settings and programs — annoying to lose, possible to remake. That ordering is also why the rooms were destroyed and rebuilt around it: the content was safe before anything was deleted, and a plan that deletes things is a plan with a count in it.
02What changes for you, phase by phase
| When | What you will notice |
|---|---|
| Today | Films and television work, at home and away. One login opens them. A status page says what is up and what is down. The games machine runs. The AI helpers work in a window on a desk. The audiobook and music shelves are not filled yet, and have no address. |
| After the games layer moves | Ideally nothing — the same servers, the same saves, and a page where you start and stop them yourself. |
| The front door, which is built | Done: one login opens the film shelf, and the status page exists to check before you blame the Wi-Fi. What is left is the break-glass account for the day the login is the thing that is broken. |
| After the mailroom is connected | You can ask for a film by typing its name, and it appears. Nothing else changes. Today it cannot search, because the search accounts are gone — that is the missing piece, not the machinery. |
| After the playroom | A chat page for the AI helpers, with an account for each of us. The story corner gets its own front door. The game panel gets a page. |
| After the backups | Nothing, and that is the point: a bad day stops being a disaster. |
| After the library moves | Nothing, ideally. That is the success condition: the same shelf, faster, and no longer able to take the house down with it. |
| After the fun things | Our books read aloud in a chosen voice. Agents doing chores with a budget and a stop button. |
03Undecided — your opinion wanted
The name of the second helper — decided
We asked the family, and the family answered. Veronica, chosen by Haley, for the second deep seat. The hardware for two conversations at the same time went in on 25 October 2026, so the machine is ready; what is missing is the choice of which model fills her seat. The shortlist stays on the names page as a keepsake.
Decided by the family
Family photos
Should every device in the family quietly copy its pictures to our own shelf? Very doable. Needs decisions about space, and about which albums stay private between family members.
Not in the plan yet
How clever, and how patient
A bigger AI brain is cleverer and slower; a smaller one answers in a second and is duller. Today we run two seats — a quick helper and a deep one — and the plan is three. How much patience the family wants, and how much cleverness is worth waiting for, is a real question with no technical answer.
Tell us
The off-site copy
Both of our datacentre machines are in the same building. The irreplaceable things need a copy that does not share that building’s fate. Chosen in principle, not built, and the destination is not picked.
On the list, at the top
How much you want to be asked
Alerts are tiered: only serious ones make a noise. Do you want a monthly “here is what is new” message, or silence until something breaks? Genuinely do not know.
Tell us
Stories or voices, which first
The story corner is in use on our own machines. The voice machine is measured, proven, and waiting for its shelf. Which one gets built first is a family decision, not a technical one — and the samples of the voices are recorded, so you can hear what you are voting for.
Your call
When alpha testing finishes we open sign-ups: your own account, your own shelf, your own place in the book, your own helper. That is the finish line for everything on this page — the plan stops being a plan on the day you get a login. Nothing here will ever ask you to install something to take part.
04What we refuse to do
The refusals
- No family member will ever be asked to install software to use a family service.
- No service gets a public door because it was quicker than putting it behind the front desk.
- No helper of ours gets the ability to spend money, reveal a password, or delete a thing without a human.
- No “temporary” open door. Temporary doors are still open in three years.
- No machine gets a job it was not chosen for, because the hardware could theoretically manage it.
How we decide things
- Measure before believing. We benchmarked our own machines rather than trusting the marketing, and twice the marketing was wrong.
- Check the instrument before believing the reading. Four of our own test scripts were broken, and one of them was flattering us.
- Write down every exception, with a reason next to it.
- Take a photograph before every change, so “undo” is always available.
- When we get something wrong in public, we correct it in public and say what the lesson is.
Two of the loudest claims in our own planning notes turned out to be wrong, and one of them was invented by an AI helper and never agreed by a human. Both were struck from the plan. That is the whole reason this page exists: a plan that cannot be argued with is a plan that cannot be corrected.