The parts and what they do

A working draft, November 2026. This book is being written while The Grove is being built; expect it to change. Checked against the build as it stood on 1 November 2026.

This page is a reference to every named part of the system the book describes, so nobody stalls on a word. Each entry points to the chapter that explains it, and says "not built yet" where a part is designed but not running.

The shape

The Grove. The first network of organisations running on the system this book describes, which has no name of its own. Hence "organisations on The Grove". (Chapters 6 and 27)

Organisation. A living pattern of people and work re-forming around a purpose, with many boundaries, not one wall. (Chapter 5)

Root. The first branch: stewardship of the whole, holding the purpose and anything that hasn't found a home. Held at first by whoever planted the organisation, because someone has to, and passed on when they step down; it's never left with nobody in it. It needn't be a founder's place. In decisions it's one seat among its children; in structure it's where homeless work rests and unanswered tensions end. (Chapters 7 and 20)

Branch. A part of the organisation shaped around a piece of work, never a person. It holds a purpose, accountabilities, domains and practices, and can hold smaller branches. (Chapter 9)

Accountability. One ongoing activity a branch answers for, such as "bookings". Work is routed by matching against them. (Chapters 9 and 13)

Purpose. What the organisation, or a branch, exists to serve: a direction, not a destination. The root's purpose changes only in the forum around the root, with every member asked for advice, two thirds of the forum's trust and a timelock. A branch's purpose is set in the forum around its parent. (Chapter 8)

Forum. Where a branch is governed: the stewards of its parent and of its sibling branches, with the branch's own steward taking part as a person, and never the people below it. The root has no parent, so it's governed by its own stewards and the stewards of the branches grown directly from it. Forums are made of people, not branches: someone holding several seats can sit in many forums, one person holding several seats in the same forum counts once, and a crew carries one seat's weight. A forum with fewer than two distinct people passes its decisions towards the root. (Chapters 7 and 9)

Seat. What a person holds in a branch; each branch has one, and it can be shared. Nobody takes a seat by their own proposal unless they'd decide alone anyway, and anyone can step down. (Chapters 7 and 9)

Steward. The person holding a seat, looking after a part for the whole, neither owning it nor managing anyone. Not the Steward, below. (Chapter 7)

Crew. The people sharing one seat, usually those doing the branch's work. Each takes part as a person, but together they carry one seat's weight. (Chapters 7 and 10)

Member. Anyone who has joined by personal invitation and agreed to the organisation's agreement. Members sense, advise, usher work and see the whole; only seat holders propose and decide. (Chapter 10)

Guest. Someone from outside invited by a personal link into one sensing. Their words are shown beside the members', never mixed in. (Chapter 10)

The routing rule. A forum with fewer than two distinct people doesn't decide; its decisions go to the next forum up that has two, ending at the root. One person holding several branches is still one person. (Chapter 9)

DAO. A decentralised autonomous organisation: one whose rules are carried out by code its people agreed. Every organisation on The Grove is one from its first day. Nobody holds tokens, pays fees to act or handles cryptocurrency; the only touch of the blockchain is signing in with Internet Identity. (Chapter 6)

Legal wrapper. An optional legal form for the organisation itself, so that it can be a legal entity the law can see: a DAO company owned by the organisation, which its members govern, pointing at where the organisation decides, with a purpose lock beside it. The organisation decides; the wrapper only carries its decisions into the legal world. Not built yet. (Chapter 18)

Deciding

Tension. A sensed gap between how things are and how they could be. Every proposal starts from one. (Chapters 11 and 19)

Sensing. A question put to a part of the organisation in the Field, open for a window of days. Any member can call one. (Chapter 10)

Proposal. The only way the structure changes. It carries the tension, the exact change, what it expects and what it stands on. Only someone seated in the forum that will hear it can raise one. (Chapter 11)

Shape. The first stage: another person in the deciding forum checks only that it's clear and does what its words say. Unchecked for three days, it rises to the next forum up. (Chapter 11)

Advice. Three to fourteen days, or until everyone asked has answered, from people with skill and those the change touches. Advice never holds a proposal up. (Chapter 11)

Vote. Nobody votes for or against: deciders consent or raise a concern. Open two days unless all consent sooner, it passes with enough trust behind it and no concern standing. (Chapter 11)

Made. The change is enacted; several changes in one proposal are made together or not at all. (Chapter 11)

Review, or look back. Four weeks after a change by default, everyone who took part is asked whether it landed and whether to keep, change or stop it. A recommended change becomes work for the forum, never a proposal raised by the system. (Chapters 11 and 26)

Consent. Not everyone saying yes, but nobody naming a harm that has to be answered first. (Chapter 11)

Quorum. How much of a forum's trust in that kind of matter has to stand behind a change: a fifth for low impact, two fifths for medium, two thirds for high. (Chapters 11 and 12)

Concern. An objection saying what has to be answered before its author could consent. It holds the proposal until reworked or lifted by its author alone. Still standing after ten days, the proposal lapses. (Chapter 11)

Stand aside. The person a seat change would seat takes no part in deciding it. (Chapters 6 and 7)

Timelock. A three-day pause before a high-impact change takes effect. (Chapter 11)

Circuit breaker. A concern raised during the timelock stops the change. A brake, never an accelerator. (Chapter 11)

Jury. A last resort for an evenly split forum, drawn by lot. Not built yet. (Chapter 11)

Trust

Trust economy. Each forum has its own economy of trust for each kind of matter, finance or care, say. Trust there is governance weight. It was designed to fade unless renewed; that isn't running yet. (Chapter 12)

Share. Each seat holder's equal portion of a forum's trust to give to peers: never to themselves, never passed on, spread evenly until directed. (Chapter 12)

Reputation. An organisation-wide picture of skill in each kind of matter. It decides who is asked for advice, never the decision, and each person sees only their own. (Chapter 12)

The firewall between trust and money. Trust can't be bought or sold, and money buys no say. (Chapters 12 and 17)

Work

The one door. Every way work arrives comes in through one entrance and is routed the same way. (Chapter 13)

Triage. Wise-Eye's first reading at the door: whether it's work, which accountability answers for it, what's at stake. (Chapters 13 and 22)

Connector. A branch's link to one outside service: today a Gmail mailbox, a Google Drive, the organisation's social accounts or its books in Xero. Whoever holds the branch connects it; its key is sealed outside the system, and what arrives through it comes through the one door. Wise-Eye sends through it only once standing is earned, and never posts. (Chapters 13 and 22)

The membrane and the four weights. The membrane is the boundary with the world, and work is weighed by how it crossed it: from outside (if it cost the sender at least an ask), held (the organisation's own committed work), going out, or made here. Only work from outside and held work make a branch want to grow. "Held" also, separately, means high-stakes work kept for a person. (Chapters 5, 13 and 19)

Front desk. The organisation answering at its own boundary, on its website's chat, WhatsApp, text messages and social direct messages, with voice still to come. It answers from what's public and from a verified caller's own cases, takes work in through the one door, and finishes it only where the branch allows and the promise is like ones already kept. A voice of its own, never Wise-Eye's; it says first that it's an AI. (Chapter 16)

Caller and case. Someone outside the organisation it has dealt with, kept as only the contacts they've proved, the name they gave, and their cases: every piece of work they were a party to, on any channel. No notes, tags or scores. Kept for a rolling year, and forgotten on request. (Chapter 16)

Canopy. The organisation's website, served by the system itself rather than through a connector. Its structure, words and look are held as separate domains and go live only when their holders publish; Wise-Eye drafts, never publishes. What's sent in through it becomes work at the one door. (Chapter 13)

Ushering. Moving work to the branch it belongs to. Any member who can see it can usher it. (Chapters 10 and 13)

Homeless work. Work that has risen to the root with no job covering it. (Chapter 13)

Promise. A commitment made to someone, belonging to a branch, with a day. Each step has a latest start, and reads as at risk once it passes. (Chapter 15)

Carrier. The person carrying a promise, by default whoever made it. (Chapter 15)

Ask. Two meanings. Work from outside asking for something by a day, which runs on a clock so it's answered in time. And a rung of cost, a message or a form, more than a glance or a few words: the least work from outside has to cost to make a branch want to grow. (Chapters 13 and 15)

Rising. What's unattended comes into view a step at a time, never by alert. A step at risk is said once in the branch above's conversation; work refused or left without a job moves up a branch; unanswered tensions climb a forum every fourteen days. (Chapters 13, 15 and 20)

Your day. Each person's home in the page: their heads-up, what's asked of them, and what's on a clock today and for three days. What's due shows here, never outside. (Chapters 13 and 15)

Heads-up. A few plain lines Wise-Eye prepares each morning for each steward here in the last fortnight. It waits; nothing is pushed. (Chapters 20 and 22)

Boards. Each branch's board of next moves, with what's next, waiting and someday, sealed to the seat and passed whole to the next holder. (Chapters 13 and 23)

Vision

Bet. A belief the world can answer. It names what would show it holds and, required, what would show it doesn't, who it's about, a day within six months and its measure. At most three open per branch; nothing new back for six weeks and it fades to untested. (Chapter 14)

Measure. Two meanings. A bet's measure: how many answers by its day, and at least what each must cost, fixed before anything goes out. The organisation's measures: the numbers it watches. (Chapters 11 and 14)

Probe. Outbound work that tests a bet and expects a reply by a day. Many, aimed, each expecting little. (Chapter 14)

Evidence. What comes back from outside, linked to a bet with its direction and its cost, from a glance to a commitment. Only yeses count towards the measure. (Chapter 14)

Successor. The new bet a reshaped bet becomes, taking its waiting work and probes still out, while the old keeps its evidence. (Chapter 14)

Money

The commons. The shared purse. Recorded income lands there, not with the branch that earned it, and is allocated by need. (Chapters 17 and 20)

Budget. Money from the commons to a branch by a proposal in the root's forum, carrying evidence of what it's for and the branch's load. (Chapter 17)

The open week. A payment counts at once on its recorder's word, and any member can question it for a week. (Chapter 17)

The floor. An equal amount for each member each period, never earned by work, set by proposal and starting at nothing. A floor beyond any forum's vote is not built yet. (Chapter 17)

The dials. One allocation, by proposal in the root's forum, dividing each period's profit between growth, the floor, hours given, roles held, contribution and equal shares. (Chapter 17)

Purpose lock. Value locked to the purpose, which no vote can unlock. It can move between branches but is never sold, given away or written off. A sale with proceeds kept locked is not built yet. (Chapters 8 and 17)

Landings. Anyone can say they depend on something the organisation holds. A proposal to dispose of it can't conclude without saying how each such person will land. (Chapters 17 and 24)

Seeing itself

The read. The continuous reading of what work does at each branch: arrived, done, passed on, refused, homeless, done from outside its seat. It looks back four weeks, has no place for a person, and decides nothing. (Chapters 5 and 19)

Readings: grow, wither, split, merge. Grow: work arriving clearly faster than it closes. Wither: quiet and something left untended, never quiet alone. Split: work falling into groups different hands take up. Merge: work passing back and forth, never because the same people hold both. (Chapter 19)

Tensions the work shows. Work bouncing between branches, done from another's seat, repeatedly sent where it isn't held, answered by no accountability, and overlap, where the same outside people come to two branches. Each lands on the lowest forum covering every branch involved, read as the map being wrong, and rises a forum after fourteen days unanswered. (Chapters 11, 19 and 20)

The lean. What people said in the Field set beside what they chose to do when nobody had to, never blended. Strong: said and done. Drift: said, not done. The unspoken: done, never said. Tested, not yet said: a theme where a bet was decided but nobody has named the direction. (Chapters 5 and 19)

The Field and co-sensing. The Field is how an organisation listens to how its people find things. Co-sensing is how a sensing runs: people offer in their own words and mark what lands with them, blind, with no names or counts until it closes. (Chapters 10 and 14)

The reveal. What a sensing shows when it closes, worked out in one step, then the links between people and their words are deleted. Its first view is one member, one voice; other views show only where enough people stand in each. (Chapter 10)

The flame. Each branch's reading of how it's doing, over itself and everything inside it; the root's is the organisation's. Four readings (landing, on purpose, flowing, warm), said in words, open to every member, never ranked. (Chapters 19 and 20)

A sense of itself. Building towards, not built: a small learned model, beside the hand-written rules, that grows the organisation's instincts from what organisations actually do, so it can feel where it's strained, what it's missing and where something wants to move. It senses and never acts; the law acts. Open to every member, never to one seat. Wise-Eye is its voice. (Chapter 21)

The learning pulse. Whether the organisation is learning: how fast tensions become changes, whether reviews conclude, whether playbooks are revised. (Chapter 19)

Echo. A reading that the Field has agreed with itself in every view for three sensings running while nobody from outside has been heard for six months. (Not yet in a chapter; it belongs with the read, Chapter 19.)

Memory and care

Branch documents. Five per branch: intent, offer, where we are, people, decisions. Wise-Eye writes them as the work goes; they're open to every member unless in a locked domain. (Chapter 23)

The Clearing. The space for being together without an agenda, off the record. Nothing said there is kept or read. (Chapters 12 and 23)

What's sealed. What belongs to a seat or a person, encrypted so the system can't read it: a branch's board, each person's own notes, and their conversation with Wise-Eye, which they can have forgotten. (Chapter 23)

AI

Wise-Eye. The system's AI, built in: the companion beside each steward on each branch they hold. It reads for meaning, routes, drafts, makes sense of what's happening, learns from corrections, and prepares what needs a person's word. It has no seat and no tool for consenting or raising a concern. (Chapters 7 and 22)

Playbooks. Plain documents saying how a kind of work is done, each tool marked as Wise-Eye acting alone, with a person's yes, or never. Principles, never cases. (Chapters 13 and 22)

Earned standing. Wise-Eye's right to act alone, one kind of work at a time: after five low-stakes drafts go out unedited, it offers, and a person decides. One solo call in ten is checked; a wrong one takes the standing away. (Chapter 22)

Beyond one organisation

Network. Organisations that recognise each other and share a steward for their code. When The Grove goes live, each organisation is its own DAO in its own space; as the code stands, they don't yet have one each. (Chapters 26 and 27)

The Steward. The organisation that looks after a network's code and ships releases, taking no fee on what passes between organisations. Distinct from a seat's steward. An organisation in its own right from the day The Grove goes live. (Chapters 26 and 27)

Kernel. The smallest core of the code: the guardrails nobody inside an organisation can vote away. (Chapter 27)

DNA. What makes an organisation itself: purpose, branches, agreements, playbooks and decisions, written by its people and belonging to them. It's what runs on the operating system, the way programmes run on a computer. (Chapters 6 and 27)

Agreement. Two meanings. The organisation's agreement on how its people are here together, which members agree to on joining. And an agreement between organisations, for one to serve another's job, decided by a proposal on each side and looked back on every ninety days by default. (Chapters 10 and 26)

Service. Something a branch offers other organisations, at its own price, by a proposal. (Chapter 26)

Need. A branch's posting of what it's short of, for organisations to answer with a service. (Chapter 26)