Project-Thoth/docs/engineering/architecture/Reference Architecture.md

Project Thoth Reference Architecture

Version 0.2 — Capture Boundary

Core Definition

Project Thoth consists of two primary systems:

System 1: Capture Connectors
System 2: Project Thoth Application

The boundary is strict:

Capture Connectors capture source material.
Project Thoth stores, processes, reasons over, and transforms that material.

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System 1 — Capture Connectors

Purpose

Capture Connectors operate where knowledge is created or encountered.

Examples:

• ChatGPT

• Gemini

• Copilot

• Open WebUI

• Outlook

• Word

• Excel

• PowerPoint

• Adobe Acrobat

• Web pages

• Slack

• Teams

• Email

• YouTube

Responsibilities

Capture Connectors may:

• detect the active source

• extract source content

• preserve structure when possible

• capture technical metadata

• send the captured payload to Project Thoth

Non-Responsibilities

Capture Connectors must not:

• reason over the source

• generate Source Metadata

• generate Manifests

• generate Harvests

• decide canonical knowledge

• call LLM processors

• manage the vault

MVP Connector

The MVP Capture Connector is:

ChatGPT Capture Connector

Its single user-facing action is:

Save to Project Thoth

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System 2 — Project Thoth Application

Purpose

The Project Thoth Application manages the knowledge corpus.

It is the place where captured content is stored, processed, searched, reasoned over, transformed, and published.

Responsibilities

Project Thoth may:

• receive captured payloads

• save Primary Sources to the vault

• display raw captured content

• manage vault structure

• generate Source Metadata

• generate Conversation Manifests

• run Harvest processors

• call local LLMs

• call frontier LLMs

• sync with Knowledge Collections

• manage reasoning contexts

• support search and review

• generate downstream artifacts

MVP Application

The MVP Project Thoth Application should:

• receive captured ChatGPT content

• save the raw capture

• save a normalized markdown file

• display captured content

• provide scaffolding for future metadata, manifest, and harvest processing

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Boundary Contract

Capture Connectors send captured source packages to Project Thoth.

A capture package may contain:

raw_capture
normalized_markdown
capture_metadata
attachments
source_references

Capture Metadata

Capture metadata is technical, not interpretive.

Examples:

• source platform

• source URL

• capture date

• connector version

• detected title

• message count

• source format

Capture metadata is not the same as Project Thoth Source Metadata.

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Processing Pipeline

Knowledge Source
    ↓
Capture Connector
    ↓
Captured Source Package
    ↓
Project Thoth Application
    ↓
Vault Storage
    ↓
Source Metadata Processor
    ↓
Manifest Processor
    ↓
Purpose-Specific Transformations
    ↓
Canonical Knowledge / Publications / Runbooks / Courses

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Design Principles

1. Capture connectors do not reason.

2. Project Thoth owns processing.

3. The vault is the durable source repository.

4. Tools are replaceable.

5. Specifications define artifacts.

6. Processors implement specifications.

7. Capture happens where knowledge occurs.

8. Curation happens inside Project Thoth.

9. A source has one physical location, many classifications, and many possible reasoning contexts.

10. The value of an artifact is determined by expected retrieval behavior.

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MVP Scope

Included

ChatGPT Capture Connector
Project Thoth Application Scaffold
Raw Capture Viewer
Normalized Markdown Viewer
Vault Save Workflow

Deferred

Gemini Connector
Copilot Connector
Office Connector
Adobe Connector
General Web Clipper
Source Metadata Automation
Manifest Automation
Harvest Processors
Knowledge Collection Sync
Embedded LLM
Local LLM Integration

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End