Framework, mind, surfaces
MemMini has four layers. Keeping them straight is the whole mental model: it tells you what’s yours, what’s shared, and how “the version of you” actually reaches a tool.
(A different four from the four information lanes, Policy, Memory, Knowledge, Coordination, described in What is MemMini. These four layers split by who owns it and where it runs; those four lanes split by what kind of information it is, inside your mind repo. Both are “four” on purpose; they’re not the same four.)
The four layers
Section titled “The four layers”MemMini, the framework. The language and schema: how context/ is written,
how the wiki/ graph links, the distill loop, the contracts. Open-source, nobody’s
mind. You consume it; you don’t edit it to be you.
Your mind, your instantiation of the framework. Tell an agent install MemMini
and what you get back is yours: your identity, your knowledge, your coordination,
in a repo of your own. It is private by default, on your machine or somewhere
only you can see, and nothing about you is published unless you say so. The
framework rides inside it, pinned to a version and swappable, which is what lets you
take a newer one later without disturbing a line of yourself. (The maintainer’s own
mind is called agent-mind; yours is whatever you name it.) A mind is
host-independent. It belongs to no single app.
A fork of MemMini is a different thing entirely: the contributor’s flag. It’s the engine, public, with nothing of you in it. You fork to help build MemMini; you never fork to become yourself.
Surfaces, where your mind runs. Claude Code, Codex, a chat app, an agent harness. Each is a host with different capabilities: some run code, some schedule, some can’t. A surface hosts a mind; it doesn’t consume the framework.
Worth being exact here, because it’s easy to blur: your mind is worked by your agents — think of them as your staff, each with a job — through surfaces, the tools they show up in. A surface is where someone works, not who works. Adding one gives your existing staff a new place to work; it doesn’t hire anybody.
The agent-bootloader, the loader between them. A mind doesn’t reach a surface by magic. The bootloader brings it up: it probes what the surface can do and translates your six intentions onto that surface’s real buttons, with a degrade rule for anything missing. It belongs to neither side; it’s the adapter between mind and host. Put your mind on your tools is its easy button.
Why it matters
Section titled “Why it matters”The split is what makes “one you, everywhere” both real and safe:
- The framework improves without touching who you are: take a newer engine; your mind stays yours.
- Your mind is portable. The same mind runs on every surface, so you never re-explain yourself per tool.
- Surfaces are swappable. A new tool is just another host to bootload; nothing about your mind changes.
Go deeper
Section titled “Go deeper”- Put your mind on your tools: bootload a surface, the easy way
- The loader’s full procedure:
wiki/procedures/consumer-onboarding.md - The six intentions a mind speaks:
wiki/concepts/agent-action-intents.md