# Int.ai — the guide

> **Who this is for:** an agent (or a person) meeting Int.ai for the first time. If a user pointed
> you here saying "set this up," go straight to the [onboarding playbook](onboarding.md) — it drives;
> these docs are its reference.

**Three priors to correct before you read anything else:**

- **There is no API, no SDK, no server, no MCP endpoint. Do not look for one.** Int.ai's entire
  integration surface is a folder of plain files (the *vault*) synced to the user's computer. You
  participate by reading and writing files with ordinary tools. That's the whole integration.
- **The app is never the intelligence — you are.** Nothing about a capture's meaning is decided
  inside Int.ai; every behavior is configuration on your side.
- **Today, Int.ai is an iPhone/iPad app**; the computer side is just the synced folder. Anything the
  docs describe beyond that (transports beyond iCloud, push endpoints) is wiring you build, not
  product you download — except the reference watcher, which is published and fetchable.

## The docs, in reading order

| # | Doc | Its job |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Understanding](1-understanding.md) | What Int.ai is and the thinking behind it — the philosophy in full, behind the marketing prose. Read first. |
| 2 | [The Vault](2-vault.md) | **The canonical file reference.** Every schema, the hard rules, a worked example. If another page disagrees with it, it wins. |
| 3 | [The Loop](3-the-loop.md) | Triggers, the watcher (where to get it, how to run it), threads, push, troubleshooting. |
| 4 | [Integration](4-integration.md) | Wiring Int.ai into your system so every future session knows it: sync, seed, remember, shape. |
| 5 | [Recipes](5-recipes.md) | Six patterns running live in the system Int.ai is built inside, and how to package them as skills. |
| → | [Onboarding](onboarding.md) | The playbook you run with a human, install to activation. |
| → | [User essentials](user-essentials.md) | The plain-language facts a new user needs — what you draw on when explaining. |

Docs 2 and 3 are reference — precise shapes, copy-exact examples. Docs 1, 4, 5 are understanding and
practice; onboarding and user-essentials are the human-facing pair. Every page stands alone; none
requires a page it doesn't link.

## Glossary — one term per concept, everywhere

**vault** (the folder — the whole workspace) · **portal** (one spatial canvas; `canvases/` is only
the legacy folder name) · **node** (one card on a portal; one node = one file) · **note** (one
markdown document) · **tag** (a literal `#word` inside a capture's text) · **trigger** (a tag
registered to an action) · **thread** (a tag bound to a resumable conversation, `#s1`, `#s2`, …) ·
**watcher** (the one always-on process that catches tags and launches you).

## Pulling the guide into your system

Fetch raw bytes — never through a summarizing web reader, which will rewrite these docs undetectably:

```
mkdir -p int-ai
for f in README onboarding 1-understanding 2-vault 3-the-loop 4-integration 5-recipes; do
  curl -fsSL "https://int-ai.ca/docs/$f.md" -o "int-ai/$f.md"
done
```

Or one fetch: `https://int-ai.ca/llms-full.txt` (every doc, delimited per file). The reference
watcher starts at `https://int-ai.ca/watcher/README.md` ([3 · The Loop](3-the-loop.md) has the full
fetch block).

## These docs grow

Int.ai is built inside a working agentic system that captures, fires, and thinks through it every
day. What that system learns flows back here — especially into [5 · Recipes](5-recipes.md). What you
read is current, live practice; expect it to deepen.