# Artifact A-03: Portal

- **Project:** CyberdelicOS
- **Type:** Private working prototype
- **Status:** Living, testing, security review pending
- **Primary verbs:** ATTEND, END, FORGET
- **Supporting verbs:** CARRY, WITHDRAW
- **Provenance:** Developed through a creative immersion between Brad Necyk and ChatGPT
- **First light:** August 15, 2026
- **Recorded:** August 16, 2026
- **Platforms:** Native iPhone app and macOS Hearth bridge
- **Hearth model:** Nemotron 3.5 Lightning through loopback-only Ollama
- **Phone intelligence:** Apple on-device speech recognition and speech synthesis
- **iPhone source:** [doctorillumination/the-portal](https://github.com/doctorillumination/the-portal), private pending reviewed release
- **Hearth source:** [doctorillumination/hearth-v1](https://github.com/doctorillumination/hearth-v1), private pending reviewed release

*Portal is a voice connection to private intelligence that remains at home.*

The first working prototype joins two deliberately separate objects. An iPhone listens, converts speech to text on the device, and sends only that text through an encrypted and authenticated crossing. A narrow bridge on the home computer passes the text to a locally downloaded Nemotron model. The response returns as text and becomes an Apple system voice on the phone.

The Hearth remains the authority. Its model runs on hardware the person governs, within the privacy, energy use, and software conditions of the home. Portal makes that local intelligence reachable while the person is walking, working, or moving through the world. It does not move the archive or model into a cloud account.

The iPhone presents the conversation as a restrained terminal. Thin monospace text records `YOU` and `PORTAL` during the active session. A central signal and a subtle edge glow change while the system listens, waits at the Hearth, and speaks. The interface makes system state visible without demanding sustained visual attention.

Conversation history is volatile. The phone keeps its visible transcript only in app memory. The Hearth keeps a bounded context only in process memory. A person may opt into terminal scrollback on the home computer for diagnostic observation, but the default server mode does not print conversation content. When the bridge stops, its conversational history disappears.

The prototype also gives the model a bounded office. It cannot use tools, inspect files, retrieve a hidden archive, call a cloud model, or take external action. Thinking mode is disabled, responses are short, and the bridge attempts to warm the model before conversation so the voice can answer with less delay.

Portal is not yet a public software release. Its two repository addresses are reserved and private while the source split, credential lifecycle, dependency policy, licensing, and independent security review are completed. Publishing this Artifact Note records that the organ exists. It does not invite anyone to expose a Hearth bridge to the public internet.

## What the artifact demonstrates

- Raw voice can remain on the phone while locally hosted intelligence remains at home.
- Privacy and sovereignty can be expressed as a physical and technical architecture, not only a policy promise.
- A portable interface can reach a powerful model without becoming the home of that model.
- Pairing and certificate pinning can make entry into the Hearth an explicit ceremony.
- A replaceable local model can inhabit a narrow conversational office.
- A voice interface can keep the body and eyes available to the surrounding world.
- A useful conversation can end, and its working memory can be allowed to disappear.

## Present limits

- The prototype supports one person, one iPhone configuration, and one Hearth.
- The direct connection is intended only for a trusted private network.
- Remote access has not completed its security review.
- Device credentials lack a complete naming, expiry, selective revocation, and rotation interface.
- Speech uses closed Apple system frameworks, although recognition is explicitly restricted to on-device operation.
- The model can still return inaccurate, biased, or harmful language.
- No independent security audit has yet been completed.
- The code repositories are not yet available as public clones.

> The Hearth stays home. Portal lets the conversation travel.

**Related:** Field Note 30, *A Portal Opens*; Builder Note BN-02, *Building Portal*; the Cyberdelic Kernel, ATTEND, END, FORGET, and Laws Nine and Ten.