The governing assumption is that the fastest honest path is to clone the architecture of sporeos/ into a new runtime called editorial_office/, preserve the bridge and scene logic, and then replace the forest ontology with a newsroom ontology at the UI, registry, and command layers. The first version should be biased toward real spatial proof rather than toward premature automation. A working office with six desks and one publishable article is more valuable than a grand plan for forty agents that never becomes walkable.
Build Principle
Do not ask the new system to prove everything at once. Ask it first to prove the port. The port is proved when the user can: launch the office, walk through an 8-bit newsroom, approach a desk, press E, open a terminal overlay, ask the desk to perform an editorial function, and publish an output into the existing gazette archive. Everything else is second-order.
Phase 0 — Clone the Skeleton
Copy the essential runtime files from sporeos/ into editorial_office/. Preserve the bridge, Electron shell, and scene plumbing. Rename the main runtime entry from sporeos.py to newsroom.py. Keep the HTTP bridge shape and security posture as close to existing SporeOS behavior as practical. Done means: editorial_office/start_bridge.py runs, Electron can launch against it, nothing yet has to look like a newsroom but the runtime shell exists.
Phase 1 — Rename the Ontology
Replace visible forest nouns with editorial ones without damaging the underlying primitive. ForestScene becomes NewsroomScene. Central tree becomes central city desk. Foldtoy plant becomes desk station. Agent becomes desk, bureau, columnist, or editor. Spectator becomes gallery or press gallery. Grow becomes assign or commission. Reskin becomes reissue or retheme. Done means: the runtime no longer speaks publicly in forest language.
Phase 2 — Build the Newsroom Map
Replace the forest layout with a legible 8-bit newsroom floor plan. Minimum required spaces: Lobby / Newsstand, City Desk, Witness Bureau, Ledger Room, Lexicon Office, Archive / Morgue, Copy Desk, and Press Room. The office should read in one glance. The user should know where the center is, where the side organs are, and where publishing occurs. Avoid maze logic. This is an institution, not a dungeon.
Phase 3 — Desk Registry and Waking Logic
Create a desk registry equivalent to SporeOS's latent entity layer in editorial_office/_desks/registry.json. Each desk entry should include desk_id, name, role, room, prompt_seed, commands, output_mode, and source_paths. Example roles: city_desk, witness_bureau, ledger_clerk, lexicon_editor, archivist, copy_editor, press_operator. Desks should live as registry entries until addressed, then unfurl into active session objects when the player walks up and presses E.
Phase 4 — Terminal Overlay and Desk-Specific Commands
Preserve the SporeOS terminal grammar while making it editorial. Commands to support first: /help, /status, /publish, /assign, /reissue, /archive, /witness, /ledger, /glossary, /quit. Each desk has its own behavior: City Desk summarizes the office and commissions pieces. Witness Bureau writes witness notes and collects deployment evidence. Ledger Room classifies claims. Lexicon Office defines terms and warns against weak synonyms. Archive fetches prior articles. Copy Desk transforms notes into publishable prose. Press Room writes article files and updates issue indexes.
Phase 5 — Publishing Pipeline
Make the office capable of writing real files to the gazette archive at gazette_prometheus7_site/archive/daily/ in the pattern YYYY-MM-DD-slug.html. First output types: Bulletin, Field Note, Witness Report, Editorial, Feature, and Correction. Done means publishing from the office writes a new file to the gazette archive that is reachable as part of the public corpus.
Phase 6 — Issue Descriptor / Mood Layer
Port the skin logic from SporeOS into editorial issue logic. Replace SkinDescriptor with IssueDescriptor or OfficeDescriptor, with fields describing edition type, palette, headline register, room atmosphere, issue banner, and publication date. Issue types to support first: Morning Edition, Late City Edition, Sunday Review, and Special Bulletin. Done means: the office can be rethemed by edition rather than only by static look.
Phase 7 — Public Gallery / Spectator Layer
Preserve the watchability of SporeOS. The office should expose a read-only public view of its live state: current edition type, active desks, latest published item, rooms lit or active, and public notices. Done means: the office is not only operable but observable.
Phase 8 — Daily Cadence Layer
Prepare the office for recurring publication. Put the structure in place so that a daily rhythm can be added immediately after the first walkable proof is done. Create a simple edition queue model with planned item, desk owner, status, due window, and output type. This can live initially as files in _issues/ rather than as a database. The office should understand that not every day yields a feature. Some days yield a bulletin or correction. Cadence should be differentiated from the start.
Lowest-Risk Build Order
If Claude needs the shortest path to a visible proof: clone runtime skeleton from sporeos/; rename ontology; create newsroom map; add desk registry; wire terminals for City Desk, Witness Bureau, Copy Desk, and Press Room; publish one article into the gazette archive; add spectator/gallery mode; expand to Ledger, Lexicon, and Archive rooms. This order matters because a walkable office that can publish one real article is already a proof. A huge registry without a spatial proof is not.
What Version One Should Feel Like
The first office should feel like a small but real institution after hours: lamps on, desks named, archive stacks present, the city desk awake, the press room available, the witness bureau able to file a note, and the whole thing slightly overdetermined in the best way. It should feel less like software and more like a place where publication happens.