# INTENT — content-explorer

**Project:** `content-explorer`  
**Description:** A user interface to dig into a field of interconnected knowledge. Inspired by onco.cc, the very well organized information collection about everything related to cancer.  
**Status:** Initial intent v0.1 — 2026-10-12

## Mission

Make any viable *infospace* navigable: a trustworthy, comprehensible, evolving map of a bounded field of knowledge, served through a consistent and delightful human interface regardless of the original sources, schemas or vocabulary.

Replicate the high-value user experience of [OnCo](https://onco.cc/) through a **maintainable, domain-independent adaptation of its MIT-licensed software**, not through indiscriminate cloning of its cancer-specific content and pages. A connector projects heterogeneous sources into a canonical, provenance-aware information model. A dataspace manifest configures the presentation without new UI code.

## Desired user experience

A visitor should be able to start with an accessible field overview; browse kinds/categories and filterable sortable lists; search across names, aliases and explanations; inspect a single knowledge object with plain-language summary first and deeper information below; explore typed incoming and outgoing relations; see evidence, freshness and uncertainty; and follow a reading path through related objects. Every aggregate is linked and every claim can identify its origin.

## Core principles

1. **Objects are addressable:** stable qualified identifiers and one canonical page per object.
2. **Connections are first-class:** directed typed relations with meaningful labels and derived reverse navigation; no forced tree model.
3. **Comprehension before expertise:** TL;DR first, domain-specific technical depth progressively disclosed.
4. **Evidence before authority:** preserve primary and secondary sources, extraction lineage, review timestamps, uncertainty and conflicting claims.
5. **Absence is data:** distinguish missing, unknown, redacted, stale, contradicted, and explicitly not-applicable; never pretend completeness.
6. **Domain vocabulary is declarative:** type names, iconography, facets, widgets, reading paths and landing navigation come from manifests.
7. **Ingestion is replaceable:** no source adapter imports UI code; source identifiers, transformations, licensing and refresh policy remain inspectable.
8. **Human and agent parity:** static/exportable graph and HTTP/JSON first; MCP and richer interfaces later.
9. **Composable and reversible:** a connector can be replaced, a source re-imported, a dataspace switched and a projection replayed without editing the UI.
10. **Reuse responsibly:** preserve notices; distinguish MIT-licensed code from separately licensed data, images and brands.

## In scope — first proof

- Two clearly unrelated, tiny authored example dataspaces (systems thinking and software architecture).
- Connectors: canonical JSON/NDJSON fixture loader and Markdown frontmatter importer; a third connector (GitHub issues or Wikidata) is a subsequent integration target.
- Common types: Dataspace, Kind, Entity, Relation, Claim, Evidence/Source, Collection, Navigation and View metadata.
- OnCo-inspired landing, faceted index, detail page, backlinks/related objects, search and basic graph view.
- Build-time static projection and validation initially; dynamic refresh later.
- Audit-grade import report with reproducible ingest inputs, warnings and provenance.

## Explicit non-goals for v0.1

- Copying the oncology corpus, OnCo logos, trademark, or bespoke medical decision-making widgets.
- A universal ontology, automatic semantic truth determination, AI-generated citations, or unrestricted content scraping.
- Distributed graph database, runtime multi-tenant writes, authentication or a production LLM answer service.
- Pixel-perfect reproduction at the cost of accessibility, performance or domain independence.

## Architectural wager

OnCo's generic browsing patterns are reusable, but its domain coupling is not fully abstract. Preserve reusable UX and presentation components where legally and technically feasible; insert a **projection boundary** between heterogeneous source records and the UI. Use **profile-driven type and view registries**, not oncology constants disguised as generic enums.

## Proof of success / exit criteria

- Switching dataspace via configuration alone shows another content field, without changes to UI component source.
- Every visible entity and relationship uses canonical IDs and resolvable routes.
- Every imported claim displays its source, observed/as-of date and rights metadata where present; unsupported assertions have explicit status.
- Dangling references, duplicate identity conflicts and forbidden rights propagation block publication or produce explicit quarantine according to policy.
- Full browse→filter→entity→neighbor→source journey works by mouse and keyboard.
- Feature parity matrix demonstrates what was reused, generalized, omitted or deferred from OnCo.
- Clean attribution and third-party notice report; regression tests and two-domain visual review.

## Long-term vision

An ecosystem of self-improving dataspaces: connectors and human editors enrich a source-aware information substrate, quality and coverage measures reveal gaps, and a portable explorer offers reading, investigation, comparison and eventually questions/answers without becoming the system of record. The experience can be embedded in larger knowledge architectures through stable JSON, links and optional agent-facing protocols.