Where the product stops
The boundaries are part of the product. These are the questions people and agents ask first, answered the way the product answers them.
Questions people ask first
Does it have a graphical interface?
No. The macOS client is a separate product. It presents the same CLI facts and grows no capability the CLI lacks; it is not a second source of state.
Is it a machine-wide port radar?
No. It answers for this worktree's declared services, not for every socket on the host. machine: dependencies are observed read-only, and an unfiltered stream is only a compatibility view.
Does it write my Git or my manifest?
Git is read-only: no commit, no stage, no branch switch. oberth.yaml is written only by a person's oberth init adopt; an agent may draft it and nothing more.
Is “no port” the same as “not running”?
No. A portless worker is observed through its run record. Process, listener, health and exit are four separate facts, and one does not imply another.
How much Windows support is there?
There is a native build and smoke test plus an arm64 cross-build. Full service scenarios are verified on macOS and Linux; Windows lifecycle claims are not made from those runs.
Does it need a model account or a cloud?
No. The engine runs locally, has no built-in model inference and no cloud sync. The optional model assessment (oberth jev) is off unless a person enables it, and it never enters the control path.
Does it install hooks, an MCP server or the agent skill?
No. Integration means calling the CLI from your own scripts. The product installs no hooks, registers no MCP server, writes no tool configuration and does not install the coding-agent skill.
Can it work with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or Conductor?
Yes, from their own setup, run and cleanup slots or an outer wrapper. The engine modifies none of their configuration, and the recipes are documentation you paste.
What can it delete?
It stops services and reports identities. It never deletes a database, a data directory or a ledger row; that stays a person's call. Uninstall is a separate script, and purging ~/.option-berth requires an explicit flag.
The contract, by topic
This book teaches the chain and the reasoning. The exact surface lives in the repository's contract documents, one home per fact.
| Topic | Document | What it owns |
|---|---|---|
| Product | docs/product.md | The need, the object model, write boundaries and what the product explicitly refuses to do. |
| CLI | docs/cli.md | The command surface, JSON fields, error codes and manifest references. |
| Install | docs/install.md | Every channel, upgrade, uninstall and platform boundary. |
| Integrations | docs/integrations.md | Tool recipes, the AGENTS.md section and the pitfalls of each slot. |
| Work records | docs/workplace.md | The workplace commands, block fields and their boundaries. |
| Architecture | docs/agent/architecture.md | Implementation boundaries and the chain of facts as code enforces it. |
Machine entry points
llms.txt— a curated index of the guide and the contract, with one line per link.llms-full.txt— every English chapter in one plain-text file.sitemap.xml— every page in both languages.
The HTML pages are the source; the machine files are generated from the same content at build time, so they cannot silently drift from the book.