Public ecosystem · Open Values Standard · Local-first organizing
Values Commons
A place to make decisions by what you actually care about. One values file can travel across buying, learning, messaging, giving, and group action. The evidence is inspectable, the rankings are never for sale, and the core runs as files you can keep, fix, merge, or fork. Conscious Consuming is the first reference instance; Values Commons is the shared public infrastructure underneath and around it.
Every big platform already guesses at your values, then uses the guess to steer you. The top of most rankings was sold before you arrived. This is that machine turned inside out: you state your values yourself, the evidence sits in the open with its sources attached, and anyone who disagrees can fork the files and show their work. It holds up for one person picking a bank, and for a whole congregation deciding where its money sleeps.
Trust contracts
Five promises that keep the commons usable
Each primitive has a plain contract: what it carries, what it refuses, and how someone can challenge it. That keeps the shared infrastructure legible as new instances grow around it.
Passport
ValuesA values file, not a profile: only weights, vetoes, and lens preferences travel. No identity is required.
Read the contract →Assembly
GroupConsent first: people bring passport files, dissent remains visible, and no server gets to decide for the group.
Merge with consent →Workshop
FactsSource before score: each correction is scoped, attributable, reversible, and tied to provenance.
Patch facts →Slate
ActionCommit, not command: every action keeps its reason, dissent, source trail, and lens hash attached.
Act together →Weave
EdgesRelationships are inspectable claims with stable ends, typed verbs, and receipts or computed labels.
Inspect edges →Project map
One commons, several doors
The project is easiest to understand as a set of public surfaces around the same file-first core. Use an instance, carry a passport, improve a lens, or organize a group decision without waiting for a central platform.
Portable values
PassportA nameless file that carries what someone values across compatible domains.
Carry values →Domain front doors
InstancesDifferent subjects, skins, and lenses running on the same engine and passport grammar.
Explore instances →Public maintenance
ContributeCorrections, sources, lenses, and new instances stay useful when they are reviewable.
Improve the commons →Relationship layer
WeaveAlternatives, ownership, analogies, and action paths connect one decision to the next.
Follow the edges →How it works
One loop: value → know → decide → act
The whole system is four moves. Each is a real, working page — alone or together, on your own or as a group.
Set what matters
Weigh what you care about — planet, privacy, cost, honesty. It becomes a portable Values Passport: no name, no account.
The Values Passport →Open the facts
Every option's facts live in a lens — a file anyone can read, correct with a source, or fork if they disagree.
The Lens Workshop →Find the shared "we"
Drop in everyone's passports; the Assembly merges them into a collective stance — honest about where you agree and split.
The Assembly →Put money where it counts
Shared values meet the facts and become a Slate: a plain list of what you'll buy and what you'll leave, each line carrying its reason.
The Slate →On your own
Use it now
Three sites run on the same engine today, each with its own subject and its own face. Set your values once, export the little passport file, and every one of them will rank its world your way.
Conscious Consuming
Instance #1Where to bank, eat, read, give — 85 built datasets and 24,500+ entries scored on sourced facts, with calm guides. Instance #1 and the real-data flagship.
Open →Kosplora
Instance #2Where to learn — an illustrative atlas of courses, channels and references, by what you value in how you learn.
Open →Where to Message
Instance #3Which messenger fits your values — privacy, openness, reach. An illustrative guide built from only a lens and a skin.
Open →Together
Organize without a center
A movement here is a folder of files. People hand each other passports, lenses and slates; anyone can merge them on their own machine and get the same answer. There is no head to cut off. How federation-by-file works →
The Assembly
ValuesMerge many Values Passports into one shared stance — surfacing agreement and dissent, never faking unanimity.
Form an assembly →The Lens Workshop
FactsGit-for-data: correct a score with a source, add an option, merge community patches — every change attributed.
Open the workshop →The Slate
ActionTurn shared values + facts into a shared decision: what to buy, what to move away from — derived, never decreed.
Build a slate →The rules that keep it honest
Principles
These aren't features — they're the line that, if crossed, makes it no longer this standard.
Build or contribute
Fork the decision
Correct a fact with a source, fork a lens, export a patch, or build instance #4. An instance is just a manifest + a skin + three <script> tags — your domain's options and facts, your look, on the shared engine and shell.
Start with the adoption kit before code, then report one learning receipt after real use. That is what keeps Values Commons an ecosystem, not one app.