Aesel on a phone #
The hosted half of Aesel with a touch interface. It is not a port: the agent
loop is aesel/src/ac-server.mjs, loaded unmodified, and publishing is
aesel/src/publish.mjs, also unmodified. This directory is only the shell
around them.
Why this shape #
aesel/docs/native-shell.md concluded that iOS should be its own project with
"the agent loop rewritten in Swift." Reading ac-server.mjs closely argues
against that. Its entire Node surface is EventEmitter, three fs calls,
path.join, randomUUID and process.env — and piece, token, fetch and
site are already constructor-injected. Every one of those is a few lines of
shim, so a Swift rewrite would buy nothing and guarantee the phone and the
desktop drift apart. shim/ answers the imports instead, through an import map
in index.html.
The one thing that genuinely could not be shimmed is validatePieceSource,
which shells out to node --check. shim/revisions.mjs explains what replaced
it and what that costs.
Running it #
node easel/phone/serve.mjs --port 8770 --token
Serves the repository so the bridge's own paths resolve — /easel/src/*.mjs and
/easel/context/*.md are fetched at the very paths bundledContext() builds.
Only those three trees are reachable; the root is the repository, so the fence
matters.
--token exposes /dev-token, which hands the page the access token out of
~/.ac-token so a phone on the same network can sign in before any Apple
plumbing exists. Private addresses only, and off by default. It is a bearer
token: do not run it on a network you do not own.
Open the printed LAN address on the phone. Without --token, the page asks for
a pasted token instead.
What it does #
Type a sentence; the bridge writes the whole piece; the write handler publishes
it under your @handle; the preview reloads. The piece is live on
aesthetic.computer while you are still making it, which is the thing this
client is actually for.
Caveats worth knowing before judging output: the server allowlists three cheap
models, so this is a deliberately weaker agent than desktop Aesel, and the
allowance is the same daily one /api/ask spends.
Where it is going #
This page is the content of the iOS app, not a detour. The Swift shell replaces three things and nothing else:
| Browser now | iOS later |
|---|---|
/dev-token or a pasted token |
ASWebAuthenticationSession, then window.aeselAdoptToken(token) |
localStorage |
the app's Documents container, via vfs.setWriteHandler |
an <iframe> |
the same <iframe>, or a second WKWebView |
app.mjs is written against those seams already.