only-this-moment

The Momentary Manifesto 0.2

We believe software has become bloated, invasive, and unnecessarily complex. This manifesto advocates for resilient, ephemeral applications that manifest only when needed and dissolve completely afterward, while maintaining continuity through user-owned state.

Core Principles

1. Temporary Manifestation - Apps exist only for the duration of their specific task, appearing when stressors (user needs) arise and dissolving when they're resolved.

2. Single Purpose Resilience - Each app addresses one specific need, rigorously analyzed for stress resistance, avoiding feature creep and unnecessary complexity.

3. Bring Your Own State (BYOS) - Users own and control their persistent data. Apps interface with this state temporarily, never storing it themselves.

4. Privacy Through Ephemerality - No persistent data collection, tracking, or residual information. Apps process data transiently and locally when possible.

5. Zero Attention Architecture - No notifications, engagement loops, or dark patterns. Apps serve their purpose and vanish.

6. Instant Manifestation - No setup, tutorials, or accounts. Apps instantiate immediately with necessary permissions to user state.

7. Residual Optimization - Each app is a carefully analyzed residue, designed to survive specific stressors with minimal resource usage.

8. Transparent Purpose - Clear communication about what the app does, what state it needs, and when it will dissolve.

9. Contagion Prevention - Apps are isolated by design, preventing cascading failures and ensuring stress doesn't propagate.

10. Dynamic Assembly - Complex tasks become orchestrations of multiple momentary residues, each optimized for specific functions.

Implementation Guidelines

• Apps manifest from pre-analyzed templates proven resilient to specific stressors
• State access is granular, temporary, and explicitly granted
• Resource usage is minimized through residual analysis
• User experience consistency is maintained through the persistent state layer
• Apps clean up completely after task completion

The Momentary Manifesto 0.2 embraces both rigorous engineering principles and radical simplicity, creating applications that are simultaneously ephemeral and reliable, transient yet trustworthy, momentary but meaningful.