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Frostyard docs

Porter

Porter is a personal assistant that runs inside lodge. You talk to it in a chat panel beside whatever app you are in. You need it if you run lodge and want an assistant that works across your apps.

  • It reads your mail, calendar, tasks, and notes through their MCP endpoints.
  • It drafts, and never sends. You send.
  • It keeps its memory and its scheduled prompts (routines) as notes in your vault.
  • It thinks through lodge’s inference layer.
  • It reads frostread read-only, and it keeps one continuous thread.

Porter has no desktop app, and none is planned. No Porter Flatpak ships. Porter works only behind lodge: you need lodge, Tailscale, and the other apps on lodge.

Status

Section titled “Status”

Porter is pre-release. The latest release is v0.3.0. Each release attaches one package, frostyard-porterd_X.Y.Z_amd64.deb, for lodge’s host. On a Frostyard image, the porterd system extension installs it. Chat, routines, and reading from frostread are built and run on lodge’s host, as lodge’s porter app. From v0.2.0, you can run a routine at once from the Routines list in Activity. A run now has the rights and output of a scheduled run, and it does not move the routine’s schedule. See Run now. From v0.3.0, Porter’s rail button in lodge shows how many capture and approval cards wait for you. The GitHub manager, the next planned phase, is not built.

Install

Section titled “Install”

Porter runs as lodge’s porter app, on lodge’s host. You need lodge, an inference alias that lodge routes to a model, and the apps Porter reads. The release .deb installs porterd as /usr/bin/porterd, with its units and the web bundle that lodge serves. On lodge’s own host, you install the .deb by hand with dpkg -i. The packaging README has the steps. The operational notes cover the configuration, the tokens, and the agent socket. Step 5 of lodge’s packaging README covers agents on lodge’s host.

Update and roll back

Section titled “Update and roll back”

On a Frostyard image, Updex updates and rolls back the porterd system extension. Update, roll back, and remove has the steps, with the backup to take first. The release .deb is built for that extension, and it is not in the Frostyard APT repository. To check a download, run gh attestation verify frostyard-porterd_X.Y.Z_amd64.deb --repo frostyard/porter.

On lodge’s own host, which is installed by hand, follow Update and Roll back in the packaging README. The Update steps check the package and take a rollback archive before the new .deb goes in.

Documentation

Section titled “Documentation”
  • README: what Porter is and what is built.
  • Design overview: how Porter works and what it reaches.
  • Operational notes: configuration, tokens, dependencies, and logs.
  • Packaging: the .deb, update, roll back, and the system extension.
  • Limits: what Porter does not do, and what can go wrong.
  • Routines: how to write a routine.
  • ADR-0004: Porter drafts and the owner sends.
  • ADR-0005: memory and routines live in the vault.
  • ADR-0006: one continuous thread.
  • ADR-0007: Porter reads frostread read-only.
  • Roadmap: what is built and what comes next.

See also

Section titled “See also”

Sources

Section titled “Sources”

Reviewed 2026-11-11.

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