Bifrost

Bifrost is the planned GameCult member, governance, labor, and public-process platform running under the Yggdrasil infrastructure umbrella. It exists to connect projects, users, patrons, contributors, motions, ledgers, work requests, reward pressure, public receipts, and operational decisions in one place instead of leaving them scattered across GitHub, docs, chat, and human memory.

Bifrost also owns the governed transport layer for GameCult work that crosses public or collaboration protocols: GitHub proposal/review surfaces, Discord-native work and swarm interfaces, Reddit organizing threads in r/GameCultOrg, CultNet/CultCache intake packets, and future collaboration interfaces. That bridge role follows from the Labor Platform role; it is not a separate bot utility. See docs/jurisdiction-map.md.

Status

This repository now includes a viable alpha foundation slice of the ASP.NET Core app:

• Razor Pages app under src/Bifrost.Web
• PostgreSQL-backed EF Core model with an initial migration under src/Bifrost.Web/Data/Migrations
• GitHub OAuth sign-in plus invite/approval-based membership gating
• explicit member roles and admin-managed patron or contributor tier snapshots
• patron support event recording with derived patron point summaries and tier refresh for voting weight
• shared work board with estimates, actual time logs, review flow, and GitHub issue or PR links
• planned priority/reward pressure loop where demand can raise a work item's value before a contributor claims it
• member-facing motions with category thresholds aligned to the labor-platform doc
• health and readiness endpoints plus startup config validation
• GitHub App webhook ingestion for issue, pull request, and review sync
• Heimdall-signed external patron support intake for Patreon and PayPal support facts
• Eve Motion Verse surface and command endpoint for governance participation, with Razor motion forms demoted to a transitional browser lowering
• local bridge tooling for agent-owned GitHub draft PRs and Discord posts
• local bridge tooling for Reddit self-posts in r/GameCultOrg, including Persona flair labels through the Bifrost Reddit app
• CultCache-backed governance topic threads for feature requests, discussion comments, Persona approvals, and dispatch promotion
• CultCache/CultNet-backed agent intake tooling for repo Persona update requests
• a Verse service contract for CultCache witnesses, CultMesh namespaces, and Eve/CultUI product and operator surfaces
• a read-only Eve provider advertisement export command for Bifrost Verse surface discovery
• Docker image and local Compose stack for containerized smoke testing
• xUnit integration tests under tests/Bifrost.Web.Tests
• matching deploy artifacts and runbooks in E:\Projects\gamecult-ops

It is closer to deployable now, but it is still not a finished internet-facing member alpha. The current state is suitable for a private deploy candidate on Yggdrasil while we finish the remaining operational hardening and post-MVP economics work.

Chosen Stack

• ASP.NET Core 8 LTS
• Razor Pages + HTMX
• PostgreSQL
• GitHub OAuth for sign-in
• GitHub App for issue and pull request integration

Alpha Scope

• invite-only member portal
• GitHub sign-in only
• GitHub-backed and internal work items
• app-native motions and voting
• internal ledgers for patronage, contribution, point evidence, and payout eligibility
• no real payout execution in v1

Hosting Target

• public app hostname: bifrost.gamecult.org
• infrastructure context: Yggdrasil
• deployment model: GHCR image + Docker Compose behind nginx, with the older systemd path kept as rollback until the container path is boring

Next Build Target

The next build target is to deepen the alpha candidate by adding:

• GitHub App installation/admin guidance and live webhook verification against the real repo
• richer workflow polish around work review, blocking, and closure ergonomics
• payout proposal batch generation and tighter ledger approval workflow
• staged deploy validation on Yggdrasil, including backup/restore rehearsal
• post-MVP economics automation for point transactions, decay, and revenue-share calculation

For the full staged roadmap, including contribution points, revenue share, patron or contributor decay, and labor-platform alignment, see docs/full-implementation-strategy.md.

Local Dev Notes

• set GitHubOAuth:ClientId and GitHubOAuth:ClientSecret before using sign-in
• set Bootstrap:AdminGitHubLogins with at least one GitHub login for the first active admin path
• set Bridge:LocalBridgeToken to allow the transitional local bridge actuator to register and receipt governed actions through /bridge/actions/*
• set BIFROST_BRIDGE_BASE_URL and BIFROST_BRIDGE_TOKEN when tools/bifrost-bridge.mjs should round-trip every action through the app ledger before mutating GitHub, Discord, or Reddit
• the same bridge URL/token pair lets tools/dispatch-agent-requests.mjs record /dispatch/runs/* receipts for launched Codex work, so Bifrost keeps a live run trail even when a turn fails
• Bifrost-dispatched Codex turns also inject Bifrost-owned GitHub gates through environment config: git and gh wrappers are prepended in PATH, a pre-push hook backs up raw Git pushes, raw git push and mutating gh commands stay blocked, and only tools/bifrost-bridge.mjs is allowed to authorize the bridge-owned GitHub mutation path
• tools/agent-transport.mjs also uses that bridge configuration to record /transport/receipts entries for queue, claim, release, and close events on the request lane
• tools/agent-transport.mjs apply-snapshot is also treated as a mutating import path now: it fails closed without the bridge receipt config and derives request-lane receipts from the imported state delta
• tools/governance-threads.mjs uses that same bridge configuration to record /governance/receipts entries for topic opens, comments, approvals, and promotions
• those agent activity scripts now fail closed without the bridge URL/token pair; --allow-unreceipted-activity true or BIFROST_ALLOW_UNRECEIPTED_ACTIVITY=true is the explicit operator-recovery hatch
• GitHub bridge mutations now fail closed without those values; --allow-ungated-github true is reserved for explicit operator recovery
• dispatched Codex turns now lock those recovery hatches too: local-only --allow-ungated-github and --allow-unreceipted-activity escapes are refused inside dispatched work so a worker cannot silently downgrade itself out of Bifrost receipts
• dispatched Codex turns also now scrub ambient GitHub auth state from the child environment: GH_TOKEN / GITHUB_TOKEN are cleared, gh gets an isolated config directory, git gets an isolated global config plus non-interactive credential settings, and terminal prompting is disabled before the worker starts
• set BIFROST_REDDIT_CLIENT_ID, BIFROST_REDDIT_REFRESH_TOKEN, and optionally BIFROST_REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET before posting Reddit organizing threads
• set Heimdall:PatronSupportIntakeSecret before enabling Heimdall patron support intake in production
• default connection string points at local PostgreSQL
• build with dotnet build Bifrost.slnx
• test with DOTNET_ROLL_FORWARD=Major dotnet test Bifrost.slnx if the machine only has the .NET 10 runtime installed
• dry-run a Reddit organizing thread with node tools/bifrost-bridge.mjs reddit-post --title "Thread title" --persona-name Bifrost --content "Thread body" --dry-run true
• print the Eve provider advertisement with node tools/provider-advertisement.mjs print
• export the Eve provider advertisement witness with node tools/provider-advertisement.mjs export --out .bifrost/provider-advertisement.cc
• inspect the interactive Motion Verse surface at /eve/governance/surface while signed in as an active member
• container smoke test with docker compose -f compose.local.yaml up --build
• container health checks live at http://127.0.0.1:5080/healthz and http://127.0.0.1:5080/readyz

Read First

Before implementation work starts in a new session, read these files in order:

1. AGENTS.md
2. docs/bifrost-mvp-plan.md
3. docs/jurisdiction-map.md
4. docs/bridge.md
5. docs/verse-service-contract.md
6. docs/agent-transport.md
7. docs/reddit.md
8. docs/paypal-patronage.md
9. docs/full-implementation-strategy.md
10. docs/context.md