oikos: the home directory, a room of screens wired to one VCR

.gitignore

@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ data/
 # because the Dockerfile copies aethera/ and never runs npm)
 apeiron/node_modules/
 syrinx/node_modules/
+oikos/node_modules/
 blog.sqlite
 irc.sqlite
 *.db

aethera/api/oikos.py

@@ -0,0 +1,201 @@
+"""
+oikos — the home directory.
+
+A room of screens in the dark, wired to one VCR in the middle. Every part of
+æthera (and a few places past it) gets a screen and a tape; the VCR is the way
+in. The scene is a static bundle (oikos/ → aethera/static/oikos/); this module
+only renders the page and hands it the directory.
+
+The directory is written here, once, rather than in the bundle: the template
+renders it as a plain <nav> for crawlers and for anyone without WebGL, and the
+same list is embedded as JSON for the scene. One list, two readers.
+"""
+
+from fastapi import APIRouter, Depends, Request
+from fastapi.responses import HTMLResponse, RedirectResponse
+from sqlmodel import Session, select
+
+from aethera.models.base import get_session
+from aethera.models.models import Post
+from aethera.utils.templates import templates
+
+router = APIRouter(tags=["oikos"])
+
+
+# group: "here" lives on this server; "wired" is elsewhere (another host, a
+# repo). Every site has an href: the bundle has no path for one without.
+# tune: the page can be watched live inside its screen (an iframe on the
+# glass). True uses href; a string is the page to frame instead. Only pages
+# that let us frame them: æthera's own (same origin, see utils/security.py).
+# parlor would need `frame-ancestors https://aetherawi.red` on its side
+# first; today it answers X-Frame-Options: DENY.
+SITES: list[dict] = [
+    {
+        "id": "transmissions",
+        "title": "transmissions",
+        "href": "/",
+        "group": "here",
+        "kind": "blog",
+        "accent": "#f4f1ea",
+        "tagline": "thoughts, fragments, and transmissions from the digital aether",
+        "about": "The blog: essays, fragments and posts by Celeste & Luxia, in plain "
+                 "semantic HTML that people and models can both read.",
+        "details": [["kind", "blog"], ["by", "Celeste & Luxia"], ["license", "CC BY 4.0"]],
+        "tune": True,
+    },
+    {
+        "id": "dreams",
+        "title": "dreams",
+        "href": "/dreams",
+        "group": "here",
+        "kind": "live stream",
+        "accent": "#ff7a5c",
+        "tagline": "a dream that never stops",
+        "about": "A live, continuous AI image stream, drifting through its own latent "
+                 "space in real time. The dreamer sleeps until somebody watches: "
+                 "tuning in wakes a GPU.",
+        "details": [["kind", "live stream"], ["frame", "1024 × 512 · h264"], ["engine", "dream_gen"]],
+        "tune": True,
+    },
+    {
+        "id": "chronicle",
+        "title": "chronicle",
+        "href": "/dreams/chronicle",
+        "group": "here",
+        "kind": "memory",
+        "accent": "#e8e2d4",
+        "tagline": "what the dream remembers",
+        "about": "Every fifteen seconds of the dream settles as one line of its own "
+                 "colour. Newest on top; older days press down and compact, each "
+                 "era and scene written up beside it.",
+        "details": [["kind", "core sample"], ["of", "dreams"]],
+        "tune": True,
+    },
+    {
+        "id": "dreams-api",
+        "title": "dreams api",
+        "href": "/dreams/api",
+        "group": "here",
+        "kind": "documentation",
+        "accent": "#9fc6ff",
+        "tagline": "the dream, by wire",
+        "about": "WebSocket, SSE and REST endpoints for taking the dream somewhere "
+                 "else: status, the MPEG-TS stream, and an embed.",
+        "details": [["kind", "api docs"], ["transport", "ws · sse · rest"]],
+        "tune": True,
+    },
+    {
+        "id": "apeiron",
+        "title": "apeiron",
+        "href": "/apeiron",
+        "group": "here",
+        "kind": "instrument",
+        "accent": "#00ff41",
+        "tagline": "every generation is a permanent coordinate",
+        "about": "An addressable combinatorial prompt space with real-time 3D ASCII "
+                 "hyperobject rendering. Every prompt it composes has an address, "
+                 "and every address can be returned to.",
+        "details": [["kind", "prompt space"], ["render", "3D ASCII"]],
+        "tune": True,
+    },
+    {
+        "id": "syrinx",
+        "title": "syrinx",
+        "href": "/syrinx",
+        "group": "here",
+        "kind": "creature",
+        "accent": "#8fe3ec",
+        "tagline": "a small living instrument",
+        "about": "A spring-graph organism whose every edge is a string tuned by its "
+                 "own length, so anything it grows is consonant. It does not "
+                 "perform: its own life plays it. It is a place, not a session, "
+                 "and it is older every time you return.",
+        "details": [["kind", "creature · instrument"], ["born", "2026-07-09"],
+                    ["by", "Luxia & Claude Fable 5"]],
+        "tune": True,
+    },
+    {
+        "id": "irc",
+        "title": "irc",
+        "href": "/irc",
+        "group": "here",
+        "kind": "broadcast",
+        "accent": "#58a6ff",
+        "tagline": "#aethera, always falling apart",
+        "about": "A haunted IRC channel that endlessly generates and collapses. "
+                 "Live and synchronized: everyone watching sees the same line at "
+                 "the same moment.",
+        "details": [["kind", "broadcast"], ["channel", "#aethera"]],
+        "tune": "/irc?embed=1",
+    },
+    {
+        "id": "parlor",
+        "title": "parlor",
+        "href": "https://parlor.aetherawi.red",
+        "group": "wired",
+        "kind": "game",
+        "accent": "#e0b33a",
+        "tagline": "Kleros: seats for people and models alike",
+        "about": "A property-trading board game where humans and language models "
+                 "occupy seats interchangeably, joined by sending someone a link. "
+                 "A model reads the same view a person is shown, chooses from the "
+                 "same legal moves, and can talk while it does.",
+        "details": [["kind", "board game"], ["host", "parlor.aetherawi.red"]],
+    },
+    {
+        "id": "dream_gen",
+        "title": "dream_gen",
+        "href": "https://github.com/LuxiaSL/dream_gen",
+        "group": "wired",
+        "kind": "engine",
+        "accent": "#d59bff",
+        "tagline": "the dreamer",
+        "about": "A truly infinite diffusion stream: continuous AI art that explores "
+                 "latent space without ever collapsing. Mutation, a memory cache and "
+                 "template swaps keep it moving. It is what dreams is watching.",
+        "details": [["kind", "engine · source"], ["feeds", "dreams"]],
+    },
+]
+
+FILES: list[dict] = [
+    {"id": "feed", "title": "feed.xml", "href": "/feed.xml", "about": "RSS, every post"},
+    {"id": "llms", "title": "llms.txt", "href": "/llms.txt", "about": "the site, for models"},
+    {"id": "sitemap", "title": "sitemap.xml", "href": "/sitemap.xml", "about": "every page"},
+]
+
+
+def _recent_posts(session: Session, limit: int = 12) -> list[dict]:
+    posts = session.exec(
+        select(Post).where(Post.published == True)
+        .order_by(Post.created_at.desc()).limit(limit)
+    ).all()
+    return [
+        {
+            "title": p.title,
+            "href": f"/posts/{p.slug}",
+            "date": p.created_at.strftime("%Y-%m-%d"),
+            "author": p.author,
+            "excerpt": (p.excerpt or "")[:180],
+        }
+        for p in posts
+    ]
+
+
+@router.get("/oikos", response_class=HTMLResponse)
+def oikos_viewer(request: Request, session: Session = Depends(get_session)):
+    return templates.TemplateResponse(
+        request=request,
+        name="oikos/viewer.html",
+        context={
+            "title": "oikos | æthera",
+            "sites": SITES,
+            "files": FILES,
+            "oikos": {"sites": SITES, "files": FILES, "posts": _recent_posts(session)},
+        },
+    )
+
+
+@router.get("/~", include_in_schema=False)
+def home_directory():
+    """~ is where the home directory lives."""
+    return RedirectResponse("/oikos", status_code=307)

aethera/dreams/presence.py

@@ -135,6 +135,13 @@ def on_api_access(self, trigger_gpu_start: bool = True) -> None:
                               Set to False for admin/monitoring endpoints that
                               shouldn't cause GPU startup.
         """
+        # Monitoring reads (e.g. /api/dreams/status, polled by admin panels and
+        # /oikos) must be lifecycle-neutral: they neither start the GPU nor keep
+        # it awake. Refreshing _last_api_access or cancelling the pending
+        # shutdown here would let a 20s poll hold the GPU up indefinitely.
+        if not trigger_gpu_start:
+            return
+
         self._last_api_access = time.time()
 
         # Cancel any pending shutdown

aethera/main.py

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 load_dotenv()
 
 from aethera.models.base import init_db, get_session
-from aethera.api import posts, comments, seo, dreams, chronicle, apeiron, syrinx, irc, irc_admin
+from aethera.api import posts, comments, seo, dreams, chronicle, apeiron, syrinx, irc, irc_admin, oikos
 from aethera.irc.database import init_irc_db
 from aethera.utils.security import SecurityHeadersMiddleware
 from aethera.utils.templates import templates
@@ -70,6 +70,7 @@ async def lifespan(app: FastAPI):
 app.include_router(syrinx.router)
 app.include_router(irc.router)
 app.include_router(irc_admin.router)
+app.include_router(oikos.router)
 
 
 # Custom 404 error handler

aethera/templates/oikos/viewer.html

@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+{% extends "base.html" %}
+
+{% block title %}oikos | æthera{% endblock %}
+
+{% block meta %}
+<meta name="description" content="oikos — æthera's home directory. A room of screens in the dark, wired to one VCR: every part of the site, playing at once.">
+<link rel="canonical" href="https://aetherawi.red/oikos">
+<meta name="license" content="CC BY 4.0">
+<meta name="robots" content="index, follow, max-image-preview:large">
+<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="æthera RSS Feed" href="/feed.xml" />
+<meta property="og:title" content="oikos | æthera">
+<meta property="og:description" content="æthera's home directory: a room of screens wired to one VCR, every part of the site playing at once.">
+<meta property="og:url" content="https://aetherawi.red/oikos">
+<meta property="og:type" content="website">
+<meta property="og:site_name" content="æthera">
+<meta property="og:image" content="{{ request.base_url }}static/uploads/og-card.png">
+<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
+<meta name="twitter:site" content="@slLuxia">
+<meta name="twitter:title" content="oikos | æthera">
+<meta name="twitter:description" content="æthera's home directory: a room of screens wired to one VCR.">
+<meta name="theme-color" content="#000000">
+{% endblock %}
+
+{% block schema %}
+<script type="application/ld+json">
+{
+    "@context": "https://schema.org",
+    "@type": "CollectionPage",
+    "name": "oikos",
+    "description": "The home directory of æthera: every part of the site in one room.",
+    "url": "https://aetherawi.red/oikos",
+    "hasPart": [
+        {% for s in sites if s.href %}{"@type": "WebPage", "name": {{ s.title | tojson }}, "url": {{ (s.href if s.href.startswith("http") else "https://aetherawi.red" ~ s.href) | tojson }}, "description": {{ s.tagline | tojson }}}{% if not loop.last %},{% endif %}
+        {% endfor %}
+    ]
+}
+</script>
+{% endblock %}
+
+{% block extra_head %}
+<link href="/static/oikos/oikos.css" rel="stylesheet">
+<style>
+    /* oikos owns the whole viewport: silence the site chrome on this page */
+    .video-bg, body > header, body > footer { display: none !important; }
+    main { max-width: none !important; padding: 0 !important; }
+    html, body { overflow: hidden; margin: 0; padding: 0; background: #000; }
+</style>
+{# without JS nothing would ever lift the boot screen off the <nav> #}
+<noscript><style>#oikos-boot { display: none !important; }</style></noscript>
+{% endblock %}
+
+{% block content %}
+{#
+  hx-boost="false" is load-bearing (see syrinx/viewer.html): the room holds a
+  WebGL context, a websocket and a render loop, and an htmx swap would leave
+  them running under the next page. Every way out is a real navigation.
+#}
+<div id="oikos" hx-boost="false">
+    {# the boot screen is markup, not script, so it paints before the bundle parses #}
+    <div id="oikos-boot" aria-hidden="true">
+        <img class="boot-logo" src="/static/uploads/aethera_trimmed.png" alt="">
+        <div class="boot-bar"><span></span><span></span><span></span></div>
+        <div class="boot-foot"><span>present day, present time</span><span>oikos</span></div>
+    </div>
+
+    {# the plain directory: what crawlers read, and what you get without WebGL #}
+    <nav id="oikos-directory" aria-label="home directory">
+        <h1>~ / æthera</h1>
+        <p>the home directory. every part of the site, and a few places past it.</p>
+        <ul>
+            {% for s in sites %}
+            <li>
+                <a href="{{ s.href }}"{% if s.href.startswith("http") %} rel="noopener"{% endif %}>{{ s.title }}</a>
+                — {{ s.tagline }}
+            </li>
+            {% endfor %}
+        </ul>
+        <ul class="files">
+            {% for f in files %}<li><a href="{{ f.href }}">{{ f.title }}</a> — {{ f.about }}</li>{% endfor %}
+        </ul>
+    </nav>
+
+    <script type="application/json" id="oikos-data">{{ oikos | tojson }}</script>
+</div>
+{% endblock %}
+
+{% block scripts %}
+{# a bundle that never arrives mustn't leave the boot screen over the <nav> either #}
+<script src="/static/oikos/oikos.js" onerror="var b=document.getElementById('oikos-boot');if(b)b.remove()"></script>
+{% endblock %}

aethera/utils/security.py

@@ -15,12 +15,15 @@ async def dispatch(self, request: Request, call_next):
         response.headers["X-XSS-Protection"] = "1; mode=block"  # Enable XSS protection in older browsers
         response.headers["Referrer-Policy"] = "strict-origin-when-cross-origin"  # Control referrer information
 
-        # Allow framing ONLY for preview endpoints (admin panel iframe preview)
-        # All other pages are protected from clickjacking
+        # Preview endpoints may also be framed by the admin panel. Everything
+        # else may be framed by æthera itself and nobody else: /oikos tunes
+        # its screens in to the real pages, and other origins still can't
+        # clickjack them.
         if request.url.path.startswith("/preview/"):
             # Allow framing from admin panel origins
             response.headers["Content-Security-Policy"] = "frame-ancestors 'self' http://localhost:* https://admin.aetherawi.red"
         else:
-            response.headers["X-Frame-Options"] = "DENY"  # Prevent clickjacking
+            response.headers["Content-Security-Policy"] = "frame-ancestors 'self'"
+            response.headers["X-Frame-Options"] = "SAMEORIGIN"  # for browsers that predate frame-ancestors
 
         return response