Adaptive Experience Architecture

Adaptive Experience = Shared Understanding + Domain Services + Outer Harness.

This site is the public surface for that formula and the six layers around it. It is not a shop, not a CMS, and not a pitch deck.

The Path B florist at aea.artof.link is one case study, not the home.

Formula

Shared Understanding is the session's current, reviewable model of intent. Domain services are authoritative: they validate stock, price, delivery, and payment. The outer harness is everything that keeps those two honest in production — guides, sensors, the loop, memory, permissions, and observability.

AI may interpret. Domain services decide. Status words are claims; they need a probe.

Six layers

1. Guides — constraints and playbooks that steer the experience (what may be said, what must be checked, who owns a surface). Fourteen hats are roles, not extra layers.
2. Sensors — how the system notices intent, viewport, and state without inventing it.
3. Loop — interpret, act, verify, remember. Closing a ticket is not the same as a probe.
4. Memory — Shared Understanding that persists for a session. Memory stores what was agreed, not what would look good on a slide.
5. Permissions — who may change what. Domain services stay authoritative; the outer harness does not silently restyle or redeploy a live shop.
6. Observability — evidence for every status word. If the probe is missing, write Unknown.

Honesty

A status word (verified, shipped, complete) is a claim. Probe it with the same journey, the same viewport, or a mechanical check — or write Unknown. Do not treat a merged spec or a CSS change as verification.

Fourteen hats are lenses. Three executable jobs: implement, verify, merge (MRC only).

What this site is

• The AEA framework (formula + six layers), published from allowlisted markdown on GitLab main.
• Edit docs/framework/, open an MR, MRC merges, GitLab Pages publishes. No CMS.
• Intended hostname: architecture.artof.link (CNAME to artof-group.gitlab.io is live; GitLab Pages domain verification and Let's Encrypt remain). Until Pages publishes, treat the site as not up.

What this site is not

• Not the Path B shop (aea.artof.link, ECS Fargate). That hostname stays on the ALB only (CF-052).
• Not a section bolted onto the pilot.
• Not internal vault papers, fundraising materials, or lab prototypes.
• Not a florist theme and not a screenshot gallery.

Read the Path B case study if you want to see one instantiation, including what is still regressed.