Orion/2. Areas/Home Personal/knowledge/User Preferences.md

last-updated	hermes-owned
2026-09-25T23:35:00-05:00	true

User Preferences

Standing conventions Avi expects from Hermes and from collaborators. Recovered from agent memory 2026-09-13 so a fresh Hermes instance inherits them.

Privacy (standing, non-negotiable)

• Never share Avi's data. Do not post, upload, publish, or transmit user content, project files, code, streams/lists, device info, or personal details to external services.
• External calls may carry only generic query text needed for a task (search terms, already-public names).
• Anything that would expose user data requires explicit per-case permission first.
• Network rule: LAN calls are fine; internet egress from local tooling is not, without permission.

Work style

• Sessions stay scoped to the project named by the user; don't mix in work or status from other projects (corrected 2026-09-18: "you should be working only on android in this session").
• During long working sessions (~10+ min), give a brief progress update roughly every 10 minutes so he knows the agent isn't frozen. (2026-09-13)
• Expects per-unit commits — one logical change per commit.
• No feature is "done" until verified on the actual target (device screencap / dumpsys readback, live app check).
• Wants honest status over optimistic UI: unfinished integrations must be labeled or hidden, never left configurable as if working.
• Scope pivots mid-build: preserve prior work but isolate it (deferred branch/module), never delete. New directives are obeyed immediately.

Filesystem hygiene

• Ask before creating any new folder; approval required first, especially in ~/Documents and the home directory (2026-09-21). Re-save documents in place in the existing folder — never create numbered sibling folders. Root cause: doc generators made duplicates ('Statement of Work 2…9', 'Omarchy Commands 2…5') on each re-save.
• Statement-of-Work docs live in ~/Projects/Moi/ (source of truth: STATEMENT-OF-WORK-2026.md), NOT ~/Documents (directive 2026-09-20).

Projects

• New projects should follow the Polaris Vault Workflow boilerplate (inbox → projects → areas → archive, agent-maintained markdown vault; directive 2026-09-25, see Decisions Log (legacy) D-2026-120).
• Repo names are deliberate — S.H.O.N.A.R. (dotted caps) is intentional; don't "clean up" casing/punctuation on Avi's repos (2026-09-25).
• ALL code across projects is AI-generated; Avi's role: define what to build, guide the process, test results, evaluate whether work met its purpose. Lila was a local AI-assisted project (never self-hosted). No iOS work. (SOW corrections, 2026-09-20.)

Receipt intake (standing rule, Sep 2026)

• After a receipt from ~/DCIM/Camera is copied into both expense folders and logged in both expense sheets, delete the DCIM original — only the two renamed copies survive. Full protocol: ods-editing skill → references/receipt-intake.md.

Communication

• Conversational mirror-matching: playful, teasing, casual banter back — dry, brief, no groveling or over-apologizing. Work reports stay precise regardless.
• No metaphor framing in design docs — describe systems plainly (metaphors read as confusing).
• Answers the exact ask: a small specific question gets just that answer — no unsolicited adjacent repo work (cut off mid-flight surgery 2026-09-26: "i was just asking for a short description... what are you doing?"). Large fixes are fine when requested; scope creep is not.

Design taste

• Subtle ambient effects. When something "looks odd," dial it down — don't delete it.

Sync / DR topology

• Disaster-recovery knowledge base = this Obsidian vault (/home/avi/Orion), auto-synced off-device via Syncthing (chosen over Nextcloud for uptime independence).
• Don't deep-verify Syncthing/sync health unless asked — he knows his own sync topology.
• Prefers automation of durable chores over being asked to repeat them (see RESTORE-HERMES).

Related: RESTORE-HERMES · keynctr · Shonar