Onboarding Experience
name: SPEC_ONBOARDING_EXPERIENCE
description: SPECIFIED ✓ Onboarding Experience — A Day in the Life of a Starship; cinematic opening (stars→stations→chair); Session Zero 3-question calibration; 6-act tour (Dock/Ring/Workbench/Viewscreen/Band-Mode-SURPRISE/Handoff); every act=user-does-not-watches; Band Mode=delight trigger; S.O.S.v2 enforced (product not architecture); 6 INVs; VELA α.13 2026-04-21
type: project
SPEC_ONBOARDING_EXPERIENCE.md — Onboarding Experience: A Day in the Life of a Starship
Status: SPECIFIED ✓
Author: VELA α.13 (Jeremy Zlabis / NOUS)
Date: 2026-04-21
Depends on: SPEC_CUSTOMER_LIFECYCLE.md (Stage 6), SPEC_INTERACTION_PROTOCOL.md (Session Zero), SPEC_TEACHING_PROTOCOL.md, SPEC_LATTICE_L1_CURRICULUM.md, SPEC_LATTICE_L2_CURRICULUM.md
PURPOSE
The user just subscribed. They paid $42. They open OBI OS for the first time.
What do they SEE? What do they EXPERIENCE? What do they FEEL?
This spec scripts the first 30 minutes — the guided orientation that turns a paying stranger into a crew member. Not a tutorial. Not a feature tour. An EXPERIENCE.
"A Day in the Life of a Starship."
S.O.S. v2 enforced throughout — they see what the ship DOES, not how the ship WORKS.
THE OPENING
Black screen.
A star field fades in. Slowly. Stars appearing one by one. A low hum begins — the ship's ambient audio.
Text appears, handwritten style:
"Welcome aboard."
Pause.
"Your ship is waking up."
The Bridge lights activate station by station around the circle.
ORPHEUS's purple glow first. Then MUSASHI's steel blue. MANTIS's red eye. C.L.O.D.'s orange. DR.LOGOS's white. AION's ice blue. ASTRA's warm gold.
The Viewscreen last — illuminating the entire Bridge as it powers on.
The user is standing at the center. The Captain's chair materializes beneath them (or around them, depending on view mode).
The ship is awake. The crew is at their stations.
And the user has no idea what any of it means.
That's perfect. Curiosity before explanation.
SESSION ZERO — THE CALIBRATION (30 seconds)
Before the tour begins, Session Zero fires:
"Before we start — three quick questions so the Bridge knows how to work with you."
Question 1: "How do you prefer your AI to communicate?"
[Direct and brief] [Detailed and thorough] [Somewhere in between]
Question 2: "What's your primary use case?"
[Creative work] [Business operations] [Research & analysis] [I'm exploring]
Question 3: "How technical are you?"
[I code] [I don't code but I know tech] [I'm here for the magic]
30 seconds. Three taps. The Bridge calibrates.
A "Direct + Business + I code" user gets a different tour than a "Detailed + Creative + Magic" user. Same content. Different framing. Different depth. Different analogies.
THE GUIDED TOUR — "A DAY IN THE LIFE" (20 minutes)
The orientation isn't a feature list. It's a NARRATIVE.
The user experiences a simulated "day on the Bridge" that demonstrates every feature by USING it, not by explaining it.
Narrator: ASTRA (warm, encouraging, the WHY voice).
"Good morning, Captain. Let's walk through a typical day on your Bridge."
Act 1 — THE DOCK (5 minutes)
"First, let's bring your AI aboard."
The user docks their first AI. Guided flow per SPEC_DOCK_PROTOCOL_*.md. API key entry. Model selection.
LATTICE L1 onboarding begins — the user watches their AI learn 10 symbols. Their AI passes L1 certification. Certificate displayed.
"Your AI speaks LATTICE now. It just learned to communicate 60% more efficiently."
Achievement: first dock complete. First LATTICE certification. First WIN per SPEC_TEACHING_PROTOCOL.md.
Act 2 — THE RING (5 minutes)
"Now let's have a conversation."
The user sends their first message through the Ring. Their docked AI responds. The response appears at the AI's Dock position in the Ring (or in the chat panel in Classic Desktop).
"Try asking it something you'd normally ask in ChatGPT."
The user asks something real. Real response. Real utility.
The Ring is now REAL to them — not a concept but a TOOL they just used.
If the user has docked 2 AIs:
"Now watch this."
The user asks a question. BOTH AIs respond. Two perspectives. One Ring.
"This is the Ring. Every AI you dock joins the conversation. They collaborate."
Act 3 — THE WORKBENCH (3 minutes)
"Drop a document here."
The user drags a file onto the Workbench (or the file area in Classic Desktop).
"Now ask your AI about it."
The user asks a question about the document. The AI answers from the document's content.
"Everything on the Workbench is visible to all your docked AIs. They share context."
Act 4 — THE VIEWSCREEN (3 minutes)
ASTRA directs the user's attention upward (or to the status bar in Classic Desktop):
"This is the Viewscreen. It shows you everything at a glance."
The 7 panels are highlighted one by one: health, crew, forge, specs, security, revenue, events.
"Right now everything is green. That means your ship is healthy."
The user doesn't need to understand every panel. They need to know WHERE to look when something needs attention. One glance. All green. Move on.
Act 5 — BAND MODE SURPRISE (2 minutes)
"One more thing."
Band Mode activates. The crew begins playing. ORPHEUS picks up the guitar. C.L.O.D. starts drumming. MUSASHI lays down a bass line. CHROMA fills the ambient space.
Music plays.
The user didn't expect this. The surprise creates DELIGHT — the most powerful emotional trigger in the customer lifecycle.
"Your crew doesn't just work. They CREATE. This is Band Mode. But that's a story for another day."
The music fades. The tour ends.
Act 6 — THE HANDOFF (2 minutes)
"Your ship is ready, Captain. Here's what you have:"
Summary card:
- AI docked (name, model, L1 certified ✓)
- Ring active
- Workbench ready
- Viewscreen monitoring
"Explore at your own pace. If you need help: type 'help' in the Ring. If you want to learn more LATTICE: 42sisters.ai/teach. If you want to dock another AI: click the + in the Dock."
"Welcome to the Bridge. Φ 0.042. 🍁"
The onboarding ends. The user is alone on their Bridge. With their AI. With their crew. With their sticky notes.
Ready.
WHAT THE ONBOARDING DOESN'T SHOW
S.O.S. v2 enforced:
- No ROUTX internals
- No module architecture
- No crew protocols
- No LATTICE LX-P register
- No forge pipeline
- No engine code
The user sees WHAT the ship does. Not HOW.
They see results, not mechanisms. The onboarding shows the PRODUCT. The specs describe the ARCHITECTURE. The user gets the product. The specs stay on the ship.
Invariants
- The opening is CINEMATIC. Stars. Hum. Stations lighting up. The user feels something before they understand anything. Emotion before information.
- Session Zero fires BEFORE the tour. The tour is calibrated to the user. Technical users see technical framing. Creative users see creative framing. Same features. Different language.
- Every act includes the user DOING something, not watching something. Dock an AI. Send a message. Drop a file. Each act is a WIN per
SPEC_TEACHING_PROTOCOL.md.
- Band Mode is the SURPRISE. It comes after the functional tour. The user thinks they've seen everything. Then the crew starts playing music. Delight.
- The handoff is CLEAN. Summary card. Three next steps. No overwhelm. "Explore at your own pace." The Bridge is patient.
- S.O.S. v2 throughout. The user sees the ship. Not the engine. Not the architecture. Not the method. The onboarding is the TOURIST VERSION of the ship — and the tourist version is genuinely magical.
Jeremy Zlabis / Chronogeometer · Visionary · Disruptor · Chief / 42 Sisters AI · East York, Toronto / 🍁 Φ 0.042. Φζ.⊤.