FnUI Foundation

FnUI is the concrete visual/UI system line within the broader FnHCI concern line.

The governing decision is:

Purpose

FnUI is the path to a real NEXUS GUI, and also the likely public/package line for the visual system that replaces Bolero while sitting on top of Blazor.

Its job is to provide an operator-facing application layer that can make NEXUS usable without reducing NEXUS to a GUI-first system.

That means FnUI should sit over:

  • canonical history and projections
  • LOGOS intake and handling state
  • graph scopes, batches, and reports
  • concept and discovery memory
  • later live-capture workflows

Boundary

FnUI is not:

  • the whole of FnHCI
  • the top-most interaction namespace
  • a replacement for CLI workflows
  • the source of canonical truth
  • equivalent to one concrete rendering stack

FnUI is:

  • the concrete visual system line inside FnHCI
  • the likely public/package identity for the Blazor-based replacement layer
  • the visual shell and navigable operator surface for NEXUS
  • the place where important operational and conceptual views can coexist
  • the place where public-use obligations such as attribution can be made prominent
  • the place where FnHCI interaction primitives become concrete visual projections without giving abstraction ownership to Penpot or one renderer
  • the place where a stable token model should help connect Penpot design intent to runtime rendering across multiple targets

Namespace Direction

The target reusable-library namespace direction should nest under the broader FnHCI namespace line:

  • FnTools.FnHCI
  • FnTools.FnHCI.UI
  • FnTools.FnHCI.UI.Blazor

while public package naming may still use the narrower FnUI line:

  • FnUI
  • FnUI.Blazor

Penpot fits into this area as a design and authoring projection surface, not as the owner of the canonical primitive model.

The current code namespace now uses FnTools.FnHCI.*.

Project and filesystem paths may still temporarily use the older Nexus.FnHCI project-path names until the FnTools extraction work is ready.

First Foundation Targets

The first FnUI foundation should define:

  1. application shell what the top-level frame, navigation, workspace regions, and global actions are
  2. host boundary what stable UI-facing state and command surfaces exist independently of any renderer
  3. primary operational surfaces the first views for current ingestion, concept memory, LOGOS handling, graph exploration, and help/about
  4. provenance visibility how users can move from a view back toward projections, canonical history, and source references
  5. attribution visibility how rights and attribution obligations become easy to inspect from the GUI

Likely Early Views

The first practical views likely include:

  • current-ingestion dashboard
  • provider/import history
  • concept notes and LOGOS intake notes
  • conversation reading surfaces over canonical projection TOML files
  • graph scope and batch exploration
  • help/about with attribution obligations

CheddarBooks LaundryLog is currently the clearest first proving ground for this line because it is small, mobile-friendly, event-heavy, and pressures offline and convergence concerns early.

Relationship To Other Concern Lines

  • ingestion-and-canonical-history FnUI should present this clearly, not redefine it
  • logos-intake-and-handling FnUI should surface handling, rights, and pool boundaries prominently
  • external-integrations FnUI will later host Talkyard, Discord, GitHub, and similar intake/output workflows
  • application-domains downstream apps may build on the same FnUI substrate, but FnUI should stay platform-level first

Near-Term Questions

  • What is the smallest stable host boundary that lets us support CLI, GUI, and later live capture coherently?
  • Which current CLI reports should become the first GUI views?
  • What should the first navigation model be?
  • Which runtime candidates should be evaluated after the host boundary is clearer?

The first concrete runtime requirements for this line now live in docs/fnhci-ui-blazor-requirements.md.

The first explicit token-model direction for this line now lives in docs/fnhci-ui-token-model.md.

The first explicit reading-surface requirement now lives in docs/fnhci-conversation-reading-surface.md.

The current visual and historical Event Modeling inspiration chain now lives in docs/event-modeling-ui-inspiration-lineage.md.

Current Branch

The current foundation branch for this concern line is:

  • fnui-foundation