Software, by reflex.

Take back control. Keep the intelligence.

A reflex is a small program you install and ask for in your words. Type a natural-language command, and evoke runs the reflex, or asks first.

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See where evoke is going

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It starts with one reflex.

A reflex is a small program someone wrote, with a manifest anyone can read. The manifest says what it does, what it takes and how careful to be.

It runs on its own only when evoke is sure enough: 0.6 to look something up, 0.8 to change something. When it can't be undone, it asks a person, however sure it is.

Runs today.

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A sentence lights a plan.

You type one sentence. evoke reads it against every reflex you installed, and the ones it needs light up as a plan before anything runs.

Lookups fire together. Changes wait their turn. The rollback stops and asks.

Runs today.

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The plan crosses machines.

Real work lives in many places: the deploys on one machine, the logs on another, the chat somewhere else. Your evoke decides the plan, and each step runs where its program, its keys and its approver live.

Decide here, run there, sign everything.

Tomorrow.

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Every machine keeps its own gate.

A machine checks each call against its own rules and trusts nothing it is told. Before anything that can't be undone, it asks its own person, even after you said yes.

You're on call at deploy.acme

Roll checkout back from 4.12.0 in eu-west?

From Dana's laptop · 0.94 sure · Dana said yes there

Tomorrow.

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Everything leaves a receipt.

Each machine answers with a signed receipt: what ran, on which version of the reflex, who approved it and when. A plan across five machines leaves one trail you can read.

errorsmonitor.acmeran7f3a·e1
deploysdeploy.acmeranc2d9·04
logsmonitor.acmeran91be·7c
suspectDana's laptopran3a05·d8
rollbackdeploy.acmeapproved by its on-calle6f1·2b
postchat.acmeran58c0·9a
statusstatus.vendorranb47d·31

Tomorrow.

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A galaxy with no center.

Each team and each company publishes its reflexes, and you connect the ones you trust. Plans cross between them directly.

Nothing in the middle routes, stores or approves. Not even us.

Tomorrow.

Today

It runs today, on your machine.

Three sentences from evoke's tests, replayed as the terminal printed them. One sentence asks for two reflexes, and the plan shows before anything runs.

Install a reflex, and you can ask for it. evoke reads your sentence against every reflex you installed and fills each input from your words or your own lists. Nothing is made up.

It runs when it is sure enough for what the reflex changes. It asks when something is missing or unclear, and always before anything that can't be undone.

evoke is free and open source. A classifier reads each sentence over the network, and its provider bills your own API key. Nothing you type goes to evoke.build.

" 's address"

yes 0.90

" "

1contact0.90

Look up a person's email address in the team directory.

namedana

emaildana@example.com

contact/reflex.toml

description = """
Look up a person's email address in the team directory.
…
[args.name] vocab = "people"
[yields] email = "email"

2mail0.88

Start an email in your mail app.

tothemdana@example.com

subject

mail/reflex.toml

description = """
Start an email in your mail app.
…
[args.to] pick = "email"
[args.subject] pick = "quoted"

                        $ evoke show
                          lights   ./lights   write  runs lights.mts
                          timer    ./timer    write  runs timer.mts
                          volume   ./volume   write  runs volume.mts
                          contact  ./contact  read   runs contact.mts
                          mail     ./mail     write  runs mail.mts
                      
$ evoke "look up dana's address and email them"  1  contact name="dana"  0.90  2  mail · takes email from 1dana <dana@example.com>  2  mail to="dana@example.com"  0.88drafted to dana@example.com

" 's address"

yes 0.90

"start a 10 minute for "

1contact0.90

Look up a person's email address in the team directory.

namedana

emaildana@example.com

contact/reflex.toml

description = """
Look up a person's email address in the team directory.
…
[args.name] vocab = "people"
[yields] email = "email"

2timer0.88

Count down a duration, then sound an alert.

duration10 minute

timer/reflex.toml

description = """
Count down a duration, then sound an alert.
…
[args.duration] pick = "duration"

                        $ evoke show
                          lights   ./lights   write  runs lights.mts
                          timer    ./timer    write  runs timer.mts
                          volume   ./volume   write  runs volume.mts
                          contact  ./contact  read   runs contact.mts
                          mail     ./mail     write  runs mail.mts
                      
$ evoke "look up dana's address and start a 10 minute timer for them"  1  contact name="dana"  0.90  2  timer duration="10 minute"  0.88 · after 1  step 2 refers to step 1, but takes nothing from it  Run the plan as it stands?  [y]es [n]o > ydana <dana@example.com>10 minute timer started

" in the den"

yes 0.95

1lights0.85

Turn the lights in one room on, off, or dim them.

roomden

stateoff

lights/reflex.toml

description = """
Turn the lights in one room on, off, or dim them.
…
[args.room] vocab = "rooms"
[args.state] options.off = "Switch off."

                        $ evoke show
                          lights   ./lights   write  runs lights.mts
                          timer    ./timer    write  runs timer.mts
                          volume   ./volume   write  runs volume.mts
                          contact  ./contact  read   runs contact.mts
                          mail     ./mail     write  runs mail.mts
                      

$ evoke "kill the lights in the den and feed the cat" 1 lights room="den" state="off" 0.85 2 "feed the cat" · no reflex [2]

Five reflexes are installed. Each manifest says what its reflex does and the inputs it takes. contact returns an email, and mail's to takes one.

You type one sentence. Each card turns over to show what its reflex does and the inputs it takes.

evoke shows the plan before anything runs. «and» splits the sentence into two steps, and «them» points at what step 1 will find.

Step 1 runs. contact finds dana's address.

The address becomes the draft's recipient. contact returns an email, and mail's to takes an email. The kinds match, so the address passes.

The draft is addressed to dana, and nothing is sent. Two more sentences wait in the tabs above: one where evoke asks first, and one where it stops.

«look up dana's address» reads as contact. contact 0.90 · none 0.06 · mail 0.03 · lights 0.01

«dana» is a word from your own list of people. name dana 0.90 · unstated 0.08 · sam 0.02

evoke asks the classifier whether «and» separates two tasks. Here, the answer is yes. "splits":[{"start":22,"end":27,"word":"and","order":"and","p":0.9}]

«email them» reads as mail. mail 0.88 · none 0.08 · contact 0.04

«them» takes the email that step 1 found, the kind mail's to needs. "binds":[{"from":1,"to":2,"arg":"to","field":"email","kind":"email","via":"fill"}]

The same five reflexes are installed. contact returns an email, and no input of the timer takes one.

You type one sentence. This time, its second part asks for a timer.

«them» points at step 1, but a timer takes no address. Its inputs take a duration and a quoted label, never an email.

So evoke asks before anything runs. When «them» points back at a step it can take nothing from, evoke asks first. Here, the answer was yes.

Both steps ran, each on its own. The address had nowhere to go, so nothing passed.

«look up dana's address» reads as contact. contact 0.90 · none 0.06 · mail 0.03 · lights 0.01

«dana» is a word from your own list of people. name dana 0.90 · unstated 0.08 · sam 0.02

evoke asks the classifier whether «and» separates two tasks. Here, the answer is yes. "splits":[{"start":22,"end":27,"word":"and","order":"and","p":0.9}]

«start a 10 minute timer for them» reads as timer. timer 0.88 · none 0.08 · lights 0.02 · volume 0.02

«them» points at step 1, but the timer takes no email. step 2 refers to step 1, but takes nothing from it

The same five reflexes are installed. None of them feeds a cat.

You type one sentence. This time, its second part asks to feed the cat.

No installed reflex feeds a cat. The second part matches nothing.

So nothing runs, not even the lights. evoke refuses the whole sentence before any step starts, rather than do half of it.

«kill the lights in the den» reads as lights. lights 0.91 · none 0.06 · timer 0.02 · volume 0.01

evoke asks the classifier whether «and» separates two tasks. Here, the answer is yes. "splits":[{"start":26,"end":31,"word":"and","order":"and","p":0.95}]

Nothing installed matches «feed the cat». none 0.95 · lights 0.05

the plan
passed on, or ran
asks you
stops

What evoke printed in its tests, replayed here. The classifier's answers and the five reflexes were written for those tests. You cannot install these reflexes.

The collection, thirteen reflexes you can install today, has its own mail reflex. It opens a real draft on a Mac.

See the files behind this sentence →Try the collection in your terminal →

The rules

What holds at every size.

The same rules for one reflex on a laptop and a thousand across companies.

Nothing is made up.Every value is a choice someone listed, a word you taught it, or a piece of what you typed.
The plan comes first.You see every step, and where it runs, before any of them does.
A number on every step.Each decision says how sure evoke is, and the bar rises with what the step would change.
A person before the irreversible.Anything that can't be undone asks a person. No setting skips it.
Lookups together, changes in turn.What only reads runs side by side. What changes waits its turn.
Results fill, never steer.A result can fill in a later step. It can never tell that step what to do.
Every machine keeps its gate.Each machine checks every call itself, and asks its own person.
No center.Machines find each other through public addresses. Nobody sits in the middle, not even us.

What is new is the plan: not the app, not the flow, not the prompt.

The picture

A reflex is a neuron.

The map is exact enough to design by. Each line says whether it runs today.

A neuronA reflex: one program, one manifest.Today
The stimulusThe sentence you type.Today
ActivationHow sure evoke is: the number on the weakest judgment.Today
The thresholdThe bar set by the effect: 0.6 to look, 0.8 to change. What can't be undone always asks.Today
A synapseA result carried into a later step, by its kind.Today
Parallel pathwaysLookups that depend on nothing, run side by side.Today
InhibitionA question, a confirm, or a refusal of the whole request.Today
A second opinionA decision waiting in a queue for a checker.Today
PlasticityTeach it a word once, in one line. Nothing is retrained.Today
A reflex arcA result that names the next step, from a list its author wrote.Tomorrow
A learned responseA reviewed plan, saved, and evoked by a short sentence.Tomorrow
The connectomeEverything installed: about a hundred reflexes per request today, thousands later.Growing

Privacy

Who sees what.

Pick who is looking at one call: the rollback from the outage.

The sentence typed: check checkout's errors, deploys and logs in eu-west, find the deploy …
This step's words: roll it back
Its values: release 4.12.0 · region eu-west
How sure: 0.94
Who asked: Dana
The program, its keys, its inner ids: deploy.acme's own

The road

How we get there.

In order, each stop measured before the next one is promised. The first runs today.

TodayOne sentence, a few reflexes. The plan first, lookups together, a person before what can't be undone.
Trust at today's sizeA sandbox around every reflex. The confidence numbers measured. Six real problems pinned as tests.
Plans people can holdPlans saved, reviewed and run later by someone else. A short sentence for a long reviewed plan. Plans that wait overnight for a yes.
Many reflexes, many authorsHundreds installed at once. A second engine that runs on your machine. Reflexes from people you've never met.
Everywhere people actApps that ship their reflexes. Chat and other places to ask. Agents that propose while evoke decides.
Across machinesPlans that cross machines and companies, every step signed and every gate kept.

How we will know.

evoke sends nothing home. Every measure is one the tests take, or a person reports.

The six problems run green over real systems, for a team that is not us.
Wrong runs at or over the bar to change something, counted per thousand.
The plan chosen right at 20, 50, 100, 300 and a thousand reflexes installed.
Plans written by one person and run by another. Plans that waited at a gate overnight, then resumed.
Reflexes and applications shipped by people we have never met.

People write the programs. A sentence picks the plan. A person signs what can't be undone.

Try what runs today How it works today →

The journey above is an illustration: its reflexes, machines, people and companies are made up. The three sentences under Today are what evoke printed in its tests.