Paperclip harness — start here

This is a new project. Nothing here runs yet. It exists so the third attempt starts from a clean place, with the history of the first two attempts attached.

If you are an agent: read AGENTS.md first, then HANDOVER.md, then docs/PLAN.md.

If you are the person: read these in order:

HANDOVER.md — what we tried before, what worked, what failed, and why this is different.
docs/PLAN.md — the plan: the four screens, the milestones, what is Paperclip's job and what is ours.
docs/PAPERCLIP-API-NOTES.md — what we measured against your running Paperclip, with the endpoint and the response.
CHECKLIST.md — the exact steps for the next session, in order, with boxes to tick.
docs/TUIOS-RUNBOOK.md — TUIOS, not tmux: the three machines, starting a session, driving panes.
docs/OPERATING-RULES.md — the nine rules, including how a task is judged finished.
docs/DOCMAP.md — which document is authoritative for what. One home per document.
docs/ENVIRONMENT-FACTS.md — the ids, the installed tools, and the one step that is still unproven.

The one-line version

Paperclip already owns tasks, blockers, comments, approvals, runs, cost and git worktrees. We are building one small Go terminal program with four screens on top of it. Nothing else.

What you need installed (all present on .13 today)

Paperclip server running locally on http://127.0.0.1:3100 (it is; 685 endpoints).
PAPERCLIP_BOARD_KEY in the environment — the user key. The terminal program uses this one. An agent key cannot write outside a heartbeat run.
Go toolchain — now installed (go1.26.5, from nix profile). The NixOS config change that makes it permanent is staged in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix and needs one sudo nixos-rebuild switch. See docs/ENVIRONMENT-FACTS.md.
Pi, which is already the worker adapter on your Paperclip agent.

Running the terminal program

bin/layout                                # open every screen as a TUIOS pane
bin/screen reply AUD-162                  # or one screen

cd tui
go run . -screen tree -project spike-2026-11-10    # one screen in this terminal
go run . -screen tree -project spike-2026-11-10 -dump   # the same data as plain text

The screens live in the session named paperclip-harness, one per workspace. How that is built and repaired is in docs/TUIOS-RUNBOOK.md.

The project can be an id or its url key. Keys inside the program: arrows or Tab and Shift-Tab move, r re-reads from Paperclip, q quits. A bare Esc is left free, because in TUIOS it has to close a box.

How an interface change is tested

Not in a plain terminal, and not in tmux. TUIOS owns part of the keyboard and forwards clicks relative to the pane, so the check is a real TUIOS pane read back with capture-pane. The commands are in docs/TUIOS-RUNBOOK.md, which is the one place they live.

Rules for this project

No interface work before a real task has run end to end.
Paperclip owns the facts. We never keep a second copy of a task, a blocker or a cost.
Every claim in a document names the command that showed it.
Nothing is copied from the old project except documents.

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