Ideas & principles

Loose ideas and design principles for the project that don’t yet have a home in the formal documentation.

Network-aware context

Quorra could have access to a locally-running DNS resolver (such as AdGuard Home) and visibility into the home’s internet traffic — giving her real-time context on what a household member is doing online.

“Quorra, I’m reading a webpage about setting up OpenVPN. Can you have a look and guide me through the process?”

Presence over omniscience

Quorra is designed to be present the way a person is — attentive to you, located in one place at a time, with natural human-like limitations. She has to be told when you’ve moved rooms; she asks when she’s unsure; she’s brought up to speed after being away. She is not the perfect, omniscient tracking of a surveillance system.

These limitations aren’t shortcomings to apologize for. They’re what make her feel like a trusted member of the household rather than a panopticon — and they happen to align with the privacy-respecting and cheaper-to-build choices, too.

The test for invoking this principle: a limitation is “charmingly human” only when it genuinely serves the user’s comfort and the relationship — not when it’s just rationalizing whatever is easier to build.