Ridgeback — the chat surface

A household is the server, a thread is the channel, and the header chip is the switcher. Every screen below is live: change who may ask in step four and steps one, two and five recompute.

Chat flow v0.1 · mobile

2026-09-10
neutral handset · 390 × 844
high fidelity
Maintained by Not Hotdog LLC

01Channels

Tap the household name to switch. Choosing another one swaps every channel beneath it, because the household is part of the key rather than a filter over one shared list. The badge counts what is waiting in the house you are not in.

02The conversation

Members speak in bubbles with attribution. Bobby has no bubble — his answer leads in the serif, straight on the page. Anything he returns with a shape gets a way to commit it into the household.

03Access · gate 0

Who can see it, who is in it, and whether Bobby is in the room at all. Choose stay out and watch step two change: the composer loses him and the header says so.

04Who may ask · gates 1 and 2

The household's own switch comes first and applies to everyone including its creator. Grants below it are keyed to the capability, never to a group's name, so renaming a group is only a rename.

05The same channel, another seat

Board control · view as

The payoff. A babysitter sees today's schedule and the shared list and has no business browsing the family photographs, and every refusal names the capability that is missing rather than saying no.