Concepts

Universe

A universe is one Yoke control-plane database plus the projects, workflows, strategy docs, events, and delivery state inside it. Local mode births a universe on your laptop. Cloud and self-hosted each host one (or more) for your organization.

Organization (Cloud)

On Yoke Cloud, an organization wraps a hosted universe. Members, billing, and machine access are organization concerns. The workbench URL looks like app.upyoke.com/orgs/<slug>/....

Project

A project is where code deploys and where backlog items are scoped. One work item targets one project. Cross-project work becomes separate items.

Projects bind:

• a git checkout (or remote)
• GitHub repo (optional, depending on sync mode)
• capabilities, packs, QA plans, delivery flows
• strategy corpus

Items

Work is an item with a public ref like PREFIX-N. Content lives in structured fields (spec, design, plan, …); the rendered body is virtual.

Orthogonal flags: blocked, frozen — they do not replace lifecycle status.

Workflows

Every item pins an immutable workflow version. Built-ins:

Workflow	For
Dash	One instruction, execute end to end — small through very large
Issue	Bounded change; item body is the spec
Epic	Architect decomposition + task lanes
Blitz	Document-led plan as integrated slices

See Workflows and reference/lifecycle.md.

Workbench destinations

The universe workbench sidenav is the operator map, in three groups. Focus is the working day: Strategy, Frontier, Items, Shipping, Machines, Sessions, Inbox. Settings is what persists: Universe, Levels, Workflows, Projects, GitHub, Actors, Members, Billing. Diagnostics is the drawer, closed until you open it: Deployments, Environments, Databases, QA methods, QA plans, QA activity, Capabilities, Packs, Architecture, Messages, Launches, Events, Doctor, Ouroboros. This docs set follows that map.

Search refreshes its catalogs when reopened and offers Retry after a failed read. Incoming result groups preserve the selected result and keyboard focus. On narrow screens, the navigation drawer moves focus inside while open and returns it on dismissal; crossing back to desktop restores the main content.

Architecture shows Not assessed when its current inventory contains no Python files. A declared map remains visible; empty coverage cannot establish health. Sync the project's file inventory to assess applicable files.

Shipping and Deployments select whole runs by the projects of their carried items. A selected run always shows its full membership and decisions across projects; run detail has no project selector. Each item approval keeps that item's own project authority and appears on the run beside its evidence, before a shared human run acceptance is requested. Inbox filtering remains project specific.