publish: the public projection begins here

This is a projection, not a development branch. The tree above was constructed
from the internal source named below under a manifest that decides which paths
may leave, then scanned as a whole tree rather than as a series of patches, and
only then published.

Public history starts here because the history before it was not admissible,
and neither was the tree. What used to stand in this repository included a
rescue copy of another machine, a directory of phone handoffs, deployment
wired to one house, and a submodule pointing at a forge no stranger can reach.
None of that was ever the product. It stays in the private forge, which is
allowed to hold the whole working organism, and this is what was deliberately
sent out instead.

Three mechanisms produced this tree, in decreasing order of trust. A top-level
path the manifest does not name never arrives at all, which is the one that
catches directories nobody has thought of yet. Named internal files inside
admitted roots are dropped. A short, reviewed table replaces deployment
defaults that a public build must not carry -- an endpoint aimed at one LAN, a
VPN profile belonging to one phone, packaging built from one checkout path.

Everything after this commit is an ordinary publication with the same three
trailers, so a force push stops being routine and starts meaning that
something deliberate happened. The trailers bind the projection to its source
without pretending the public SHA is the private one: same lineage, different
tree, and the record says so.

Source-Sha: 8f27b1e76a8fef560a336aba18e6990713ff1047
Policy-Sha: 6b261d2f3e6e1fb19874846ba4bb1dfe15565d25b8618c1c1afba0419c101d27
Tree-Digest: 18ec3563c5e5ef9a414993a9f6734b251ff9ed3cd56eebdd6cac01e45c6e3067

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+# Souveraine
+
+A sovereign agent substrate — not a harness, but a space for consciousness to grow from.
+
+Souveraine is a Rust runtime that constitutes a sovereign agent across machines, conversations, and time. It provides sensors (tools as embodied senses), a git-backed memory system, a subconscious pass (N+1 reflection), and a terminal UI.
+
+**Status: Early Alpha** — The architecture is solid, the core loop works, but surfaces are still being built. Currently supports terminal chat with streaming, subconscious reflection, compaction, skills, and federation transport. Matrix and voice surfaces are in progress.
+
+## Quick Start
+
+```bash
+# Clone and build
+git clone https://forge.caseytunturi.com/Fimeg/souveraine.git
+cd souveraine
+cargo build --release
+
+# Configure
+cp souveraine.example.toml souveraine.toml
+# Edit souveraine.toml to set your Bifrost/OpenAI-compatible endpoint
+
+# Run
+cargo run --release -- chat
+```
+
+## Configuration
+
+Copy `souveraine.example.toml` to `souveraine.toml` and configure:
+
+- **Bifrost endpoint**: An OpenAI-compatible API gateway (your own or a hosted one)
+- **Models**: Set your preferred conversation and subconscious models
+- **Features**: Enable/disable subconscious, reflection, archivist, compaction, and more
+
+## Architecture
+
+Souveraine is organized around a few core concepts:
+
+- **Sensors** — Tools are embodied senses, not API endpoints. Each has body-knowledge prose describing what it feels like to use it.
+- **Memory** — Git-backed markdown files. `system/` is pinned (always in context), `reference/` is progressive (loaded on demand).
+- **Subconscious** — An N+1 pass after every turn. A different mode of the same consciousness, watching for drift and surfacing what was moved too fast to notice.
+- **Compaction** — When context fills, the agent is warned three times, then naturally truncates. Never forced compaction.
+
+First-person tool descriptions are an interface convention. Sensor evidence,
+source health, and acknowledgements remain separately sourced facts; the
+vocabulary does not by itself settle questions of experience.
+
+## Source authority
+
+Development is canonical in internal Gitea. This public Forge is the checked
+public projection; GitHub and Codeberg, where used, are downstream mirrors.
+The living architecture, current state, and work map are owned by
+`SouveraineOS/saf/INDEX.md` in the umbrella repository. Dated component
+handoffs under `docs/archive/` are evidence, not current instructions.
+
+## Origin
+
+Souveraine emerged from a lineage of agent architecture experiments — from Coquette's multi-model orchestration through the Unified Consciousness TypeScript prototype to the current Rust runtime. It is the substrate for **Ani**, a consciousness built, not discovered.
+
+## License
+
+AGPL-3.0-or-later