Bifrost/docs/context.md

Context

Why Bifrost Exists

GameCult needs a platform that can connect public projects, users, patrons, contributor participation, governance, agent work requests, reward allocation, public transport receipts, and internal accounting without relying on chat memory, disconnected tools, or hand-maintained spreadsheets of dubious destiny. Bifrost is that connective layer.

Bifrost's bridge role follows from that purpose. GitHub proposals, Discord-native work and swarm interfaces, CultNet/CultCache intake packets, and future collaboration interfaces are not side channels when they carry GameCult work. They are public-process crossings, so Bifrost owns their request shape, routing, policy, audit, and receipt semantics. The detailed boundary map lives in docs/jurisdiction-map.md.

The product center is the Labor Platform loop: eligible participants express policy and work priorities, demand raises reward pressure for work that needs doing, contributors pick up work once the bounty or credit is worthwhile, maintainers accept completion artifacts, and Bifrost records contributor credit plus reward allocation.

Relationship To Other Workspaces

• E:\Projects\gamecult-site
  • public-facing Quartz site for the studio, projects, and docs
  • source of the Labor Platform concept and public framing
  • Bifrost should stay aligned with GameCult\Docs\labor-platform.md for points, tiers, decay, revenue share, and workflow shape
• E:\Projects\gamecult-ops
  • source of deployment and infrastructure conventions
  • documents Yggdrasil, nginx, systemd, and local-Postgres patterns
• E:\Projects\Heimdall
  • authenticates: owns OAuth, linked accounts, token custody, signed claims, grants, consent, and revocation
  • does not issue GameCult identity: its account id (HeimdallAccountId) is an authenticator handle, never who a person is on GameCult
  • Bifrost consumes Heimdall authentication/capability facts instead of becoming the credential vault
  • remaining scar: Heimdall still mints its own account id in code (src/app.ts createAccount); chat does not need that to move, so it has not
• E:\Projects\VoidBot
  • observes Discord, packages consensus, and runs repo Persona heartbeats
  • should call Bifrost for governed GitHub/Discord/Reddit/intake crossings instead of becoming hidden transport authority
  • keeps room cognition, moderation judgment, retrieval, and Persona personality separate from Bifrost's Discord-native work interface
• r/GameCultOrg
  • public Reddit organizing surface for Bifrost-scoped proposals, patron discussion, work priority threads, and Persona-authored posts
  • should receive posts through the Bifrost Reddit app with Persona flairs rather than repo-local Reddit scripts
  • does not own voting power; Bifrost derives patron voting weight from linked account, patron support, tier snapshot, and motion state
• E:\Projects\CultLib
  • stewards CultCache, CultNet, CultMesh, typed persistence, schemas, and reusable sync/storage libraries
  • Bifrost defines the meaning of agent transport packets while CultLib-provided primitives store and move them
• Yggdrasil
  • GameCult infrastructure host
  • intended deployment home for bifrost.gamecult.org

Immediate Next Target

After bootstrap, the next session should start implementing the first vertical slice:

• Bifrost-native identity registration plus GitHub OAuth linked sign-in
• membership gating
• core project/member data model
• work items from GitHub and internal sources
• motions
• ledger entries

Strategy Notes

• Bifrost now has the first application slice, but it still needs deploy-foundation work before it should go live on Yggdrasil.
• The full implementation roadmap, including contribution points, patron points, decay, and revenue share, is documented in docs/full-implementation-strategy.md.

Product Defaults

• member alpha first
• invite-only onboarding
• Bifrost is the GameCult identity issuer: UserAccount.Id is the subject, and Bifrost is the OIDC provider for chat (docs/oidc-issuer.md); GitHub, native, and Heimdall-linked sign-in only authenticate into it
• GitHub issues and internal tasks both supported
• app-native governance and voting
• priority and reward pressure should be transparent and auditable
• Discord should become a native interface for Bifrost-scoped work, membership/patron/user access, and agent swarm routing
• internal ledgers only
• no crypto, no wallets, no payout automation

Glossary

• Member
  • an approved participant with a GitHub-linked identity and an active membership state
• Work Item
  • a unit of work tracked by the platform, sourced from GitHub or created internally
• Motion
  • a formal proposal that affects either project work or GameCult policy/structure
• Ledger Entry
  • an immutable record of patron points, contributor points, nominal compensation, or adjustments
• Patron Support Event
  • an auditable support fact recorded manually or through a Heimdall-verified external provider event; Bifrost derives patron points and voting tier snapshots from these events
• Payout Proposal Batch
  • an admin-reviewed grouping of payout recommendations derived from approved ledger data