Living Document Notice
Published 2026-09-14. The evolving architecture, revisions, and connected notes for this dispatch live in the Stax Digital Garden.
The Bosun Architecture Specification
Summary
Personal computing tools routinely trap user archives in proprietary cloud databases and bespoke binary storage formats. When SaaS services pivot, raise prices, or sunset infrastructure, users face significant migration hurdles. Bosun PKM Tools enforces an open-core operational model where plain UTF-8 text, open standards, and local filesystems serve as the permanent foundation for personal knowledge.
The Plain-Text Baseline
Decoupling storage from application runtimes guarantees that documents outlive the software that created them. The primary vault directory retains human-readable files that standard command-line tools can inspect, search, and edit:
~/vault/
├── config.yaml
├── engineering/
│ ├── posix-signals.md
│ └── tree-sitter-grammars.md
├── runbooks/
│ └── harbor-edge-failover.md
└── .bosun/
└── cache.sqliteThe root tree stores source markdown documents and frontmatter schemas. The .bosun directory contains disposable SQLite caches and AST indexes. Deleting the cache directory results in zero data loss, as the engine rebuilds relational graphs directly from source files.
The Open-Core Demarcation
To protect data portability, software boundaries are maintained between open specifications and hosted edge infrastructure:
- Open-Source Components: The Outrigger Protocol (OPS-1 process isolation), FreeNext migration workbench client runtimes, the Bosun PKM parsing engine, and FreeMyData extraction engine extraction utilities operate entirely on local machines without network transmission.
- Managed Services: Edge routing via the Harbor edge runtime, API synchronization relays in the Harbormaster KPP protocol, and hosted multi-tenant publishing run as optional services for teams requiring centralized deployment.
Personal notes remain on local physical drives, formatted in plain text, and managed via standard operating system operations.
- Directus Target: blog
- Garden Source Reference: MOC - Bosun PKM Tools, MOC - Bosun PKM Engine, MOC - Fleet Operations, MOC - The Plain-Text Longevity Standard, MOC - Harbor Ecosystem, MOC - Harbormaster Protocol, MOC - Outrigger Protocol