Overview
What Reintent is, and where its design stands.
What it is
Reintent is a library for programs whose state is what people and models intend. Components read intents and return the world: World = f(intents), the way React has UI = f(state).
An intent is a named question about something, with a closed set of answers (its kinds): how a row of pictures is arranged on a narrow screen, how big a hat is, whether a deck tells a story or demos a product.
Three writers
Three writers can say what an intent is:
- A person decides: a kind, or kinds ruled out.
- A model believes: a distribution over the kinds, acted on only when it is sure enough.
- Code computes: a default, and what follows from other intents.
They are heard in a fixed order, and the first one that has spoken, and is sure enough, gives the value.
One world per render
However uncertain the intents are, a render settles each one into a single kind and produces one world. The uncertainty stays in what the writers said: it decides what to ask a person, and which alternatives are one change away.
Status
The design is not final. It is being settled in the design notes, and these guides will be written as the library is built.