MainsKeeper · Round 1 / Round notes

Round 1 · notes · nonfinal

MainsKeeper, round one

Three directions answered the same brief against one frozen scenario (Wed 30 Sep 2026, 15:22). These notes summarise them, recommend a path, list the states covered and still to cover, and ask the questions that would decide round two.

Demonstration data — not real equipment

The three ideas

A · considered watchkeeping

Vigil

An editorial watch report: a headline sentence, a site log with times in the margin, footnotes on certainty, a 24h watch line and a ledger-page drawer.

Distinctive: continuity over drama; says what is certain.

Tradeoffs: wordmark relies on Iowan/Charter; the ring can read as a no-entry or power symbol; quiet in a tab strip; favicon drawn separately.

B · utility dispatch

Feeder Board

A control-room board: annunciator strip, dispatch tickets, a one-line mimic diagram, an instrument grid and an event ledger with EVENT TIME and RECEIVED.

Distinctive: bracket codes [OK] [EST] [LAST] [GAP] shared by dashboard, mobile and CLI.

Tradeoffs: harsh when calm; alarm tiles glare at night on a phone; DIN is macOS-only; mobile timeline is a list.

C · power after dark

Brownout

A 3 a.m. club back room running the switchboard: alarm plates, an italic Didot marquee, velvet booths, a guest list, a bar tab and “the back room” drawer.

Distinctive: decoration and status never share a treatment; jokes only where nothing is urgent.

Tradeoffs: marquee pushes booths below the fold in incidents; velvet costs rendering; Didot/Futura are macOS-only; magenta is both accent and focus ring.

This is a recommendation, not a decision

Recommendation

Take Vigil as the primary identity and voice. It most directly answers “what needs my attention, what happened, and how certain are we”; it will age well; and its restraint suits people operating real equipment.

Graft in Feeder Board’s operational mechanics:

Keep Brownout alive as an optional after-hours theme or CLI personality rather than the core identity — unless you want the brand itself to be the provocation, in which case it deserves a round of its own.

The choice is yours to make; the questions below are what would change this recommendation.

State inventory

Demonstrated this round

  • Healthy reporting (calm fleet)
  • Partial hardware capabilities (“Not reported”)
  • On battery with live readings (Broadwater)
  • Collector contact lost, cause unknown (Shop)
  • Recovery with historical uploads draining (Duplex)
  • History gap (14:30–14:52, no records)
  • Uncertain timestamps (14:52 ±90 s)
  • Acknowledged but still open incident
  • Notification delivery failure (Shop push, retrying)

Still to design

  • First use, no devices and initial loading
  • Low estimated runtime
  • Utility restoration detail
  • UPS communication lost while the collector still reports
  • Suspected vs confirmed connectivity failure
  • Local storage limits
  • Enrollment: waiting, approved, expired, rejected and offline
  • Authentication expiration and revoked credentials
  • Maintenance windows
  • The full resolution flow

Questions to choose by

  1. Who is the brand for? You alone, or shared with others (family, a client, a colleague)? That decides how much provocation is acceptable.
  2. In an incident, what do you look at first: a sentence that tells you, or a board you scan?
  3. Dark or light as the default operating theme — and does the answer change at night on a phone?
  4. Should the CLI keep one voice, or be themeable (for example, a Brownout personality behind a flag)?
  5. Which marks survive at 16px for you in a real tab strip: the watch ring, the feeder M, or the socket?

Assumptions