TOPOS

enter TOPOS
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Pattern · Individuals
Self-serve
one person everything they point it at one node on their own machine the people around them colleagues, friends, family they run nothing · no layer
What’s in the box
Nodes
OneYours, running on your own machine
Your part
30 secondsA voice note, whenever it suits you
Connectors
OptionalWhatever you already keep. Each one reversible
From others
NothingNo logins, no app, nothing to adopt
Running in
An hourNothing here has to be built first
The hypothesis

That the retelling is the tax, not the knowing. If that is right, the people around you stop having to ask what is going on — and you will know inside a month.

BenefitsStepsHow it worksIngredients

Stop writing the same update four times.

Your node already holds your week. It drafts the client note, the team update and the message home — three registers, one voice note, and you press send.

Benefits Illustrative

Drafts, on your schedule, in the register each person actually reads. You look, you send.

Friday · to the client
This week
  • Migration is live. Nothing to do on your side.
  • One open question on the invoice split — back to you Monday.
  • Next: the reporting screens, week of the 14th.
Business register. No mention of the four calls it took.
Sunday · to family

The note you keep meaning to write.

Work went fine, the big thing’s done · calling Dad about the car this weekend · still on for the 20th.

SendEdit
Monday · to you
Owed, and to whom
  • The invoice answer — promised Monday. Today.
  • Two replies outstanding since Wednesday.
  • You said you’d look at the contract before the 14th.
This one never leaves the machine.
Steps

This is the whole ask. Thirty seconds, whenever it suits you.

Walking back from lunch, Wednesday

“Shipped the migration, finally. Client wants the invoice split across two quarters — need to check that’s fine. Told Dad I’d call about the car this weekend. And the Thursday review moved to Monday.”

Everything else it knows, it already had.
Where each part of that went
  • Clientmigration shipped Friday’s note.
  • Just yoursthe invoice question stays put. Surfaces when you open the invoice.
  • Familycall Dad about the car Sunday’s note, and a nudge Saturday.
  • Teamreview moved to Monday the next update to your two collaborators.
One sentence, four destinations, four different registers, none of it sorted by hand.

↳ voice notes reach the node as a registered source — voxterm_transcripts, schema voxterm.transcript.v1

How it works

Five of the six components. There is no layer between nodes here, because there is only one node — which is why nothing needs building and it can start this week.

1 · THE OWNER the only Topos user in this picture 4 · CONNECTORS email calendar messages notes voice notes files and whatever else they point it at 3 · THE NODE, ON THEIR MACHINE what they said they’d do this month who they owe a reply what changed on the project what they promised their mother WHERE IT RUNS on their own machine 5 · COMMUNITY INTELLIGENCE NONE IN THIS SHAPE no third party, no other nodes nothing crosses to anyone else’s system this is the whole privacy story here: there is nowhere for it to go 6 · THE FEEDBACK LOOP — out to people who do not run Topos The Topos app their own read of their own life — the only place the whole thing exists Routines, on a schedule Friday afternoon, Sunday night — a draft, written from the node. They press send. People they work with a project update, in email NOTHING TO INSTALL Friends and family the note they keep meaning to write NOTHING TO INSTALL The only thing that ever leaves this machine is a message they chose to send.

Drag sideways to read the whole diagram →

Five components, not six. Everyone downstream is a recipient, not a user — they get an email or a message like any other. There is no layer between nodes because there is no second node, which is why this shape needs nothing built and can start this week.
Ingredients, and getting it running what it needs on day one, and the three things worth deciding together
What it takes

Who needs a node

You. Everyone downstream is a recipient and never appears in anything — there is no record of a non-participant, because there are no participants.

Where it runs

Your own machine, which is the point of this shape. Hosting exists at roughly $20 a month if you would rather not run it, but local is what makes the privacy claim trivial.

What you do

Point it at what you already keep, and read a draft before it goes. The drafting is what it takes off you; sending stays yours on purpose.

What has to be connected

Nothing, to start. It is more useful the more it can see, and every source is a separate decision you make and can undo.

What runs, and what we’d shape with you
All of this, today
  • A private node holding your life on your own machine.
  • Voice notes reaching it as a registered source.
  • Routines on a schedule, drafting from what the node holds.
  • Delivery by email and messaging to people who run nothing.
  • The four levels, so what stays private stays private inside the drafting.
Worth deciding together
  • Which sources are worth pointing at. The useful set is different for a consultant, a researcher and a founder, and guessing costs weeks.
  • The register of each routine. A client note and a note home are not the same voice, and that difference is most of the value.
  • The rhythm. Friday, Sunday, monthly, or on a trigger. You already have one; the job is to find it, not impose one.
The other two patterns
Small Businessthe same shape, for a team Organizationmany nodes, and a layer between them