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OpenBox

A multi-tenant AI Business OS — the control plane that governs agents, tasks, memory, and tools for any organization.

What is this book?

This is the living documentation of the OpenBox system. It explains what OpenBox is, how it works, and how it's built — from the highest level down to individual domains and workflows.

It's designed so anyone can follow it:

  • If you're non-technical: start with Overview, then browse Domains to understand what the system does
  • If you're an engineer: start with Architecture, then dive into the domain or workflow you're working on
  • If you're auditing: go to Status for project health, or Inspirations to see our design decisions

How to read this book

Start at the top, zoom in where you need detail:

graph TD
    A["1. Overview<br/>What is OpenBox?<br/>Who uses it? What can it do?"] --> B
    B["2. Architecture<br/>How is the system organized?<br/>What are the 9 planes?"] --> C
    C["3. Domains<br/>How does each area work?<br/>Memory, Execution, Work..."] --> D
    D["4. Workflows<br/>How does work flow through?<br/>17 step-by-step recipes"]

    B --> E["5. Data & APIs<br/>Where does state live?<br/>What contracts exist?"]
    B --> F["6. Runtime & Agents<br/>How do agents boot?<br/>How do they execute?"]

    A --> G["Status<br/>Is the project healthy?<br/>What's the roadmap?"]
    A --> H["Inspirations<br/>Where did we get our ideas?<br/>What did we adopt/reject?"]

    style A fill:#2ecc71,color:#fff
    style B fill:#3498db,color:#fff
    style C fill:#9b59b6,color:#fff
    style D fill:#e74c3c,color:#fff

Sections at a glance

Section What you'll learn Who it's for
Overview What OpenBox is, who uses it, what the product surfaces are Everyone
Architecture The 9 system planes, hard boundaries, active stack Engineers, architects
Domains How each area works: Memory, Execution, Agents, Work, Inbox, Pages... Engineers, PMs
Workflows The 17 step-by-step recipes that move work through the system Engineers, operators
Diagrams 18 visual diagrams of the entire system in one page Everyone
Data & APIs Where state lives, memory contracts, API boundaries Backend engineers
Runtime & Agents How agents boot, connect, and execute tasks Agent developers
Operations How to run, deploy, verify, and recover the system Operators
Status Project health, maturity matrix, roadmap, tech debt Leadership, PMs
Inspirations What we adopted from industry, what we rejected, and why Everyone
Glossary Canonical terms so everyone speaks the same language Everyone

The documentation tree

OpenBox documentation lives in 3 places, each with a clear purpose:

foundation/              ← Rules & mental model (rarely changes)
    system-kernel.md         "How the system thinks"
    rules.md                 "What you can and can't do"
    architecture.md          "How the pieces fit together"

specs/                   ← Living truth per subsystem (updated each delivery)
    memory/                  "How memory works today"
    domains/agents/          "How the agents domain works today"
    runtime/                 "How execution works today"

guides/openbox-book/     ← This book (auto-generated visual guide)
    → rendered at docs.thevive.ai

The rule: engineers write in foundation/ or specs/. This book reads from there and renders it visually. If this book disagrees with a spec, the spec wins.

I want to... Go to
Understand what OpenBox is Overview
See how the system is organized Architecture
Understand how memory works Memory domain
See all 17 workflows Workflows
See the full system in diagrams Diagrams
Check what we're building next Status & Roadmap
See what projects inspired us Inspirations
Look up a term Glossary