Spaces
A Space is the arena where Ratel activity happens. Discussions, polls, quizzes, follow quests, scheduled meets — everything that turns a community into a measurable conversation lives inside a Space. From a Space, hosts shape what participants see, and participants accumulate Essence as they engage.
Every Space lives at a stable URL:
/spaces/:space_id
If you have the link, you can jump straight in. If you don't, you'll usually arrive at one through a creator's profile, your feed, or a notification.
Two roles, one arena
Inside a Space there are really only two roles:
- Hosts decide what the Space is. They plug in Apps — info pages, file libraries, polls, quizzes, analyses — and configure how rewards flow.
- Participants show up to do things. They scroll the action carousel, vote, contribute opinions, follow people, and RSVP to meets. Each action becomes part of their Essence and, in reward-bearing Spaces, earns a piece of the Incentive Pool.
If you've never run a Space, start as a participant — the participant flow is the fastest way to understand what hosts are configuring on the other side.
What lives at each Space URL
The arena viewer (/spaces/:space_id/) is where most of the action lives — the splash, the participate flow, and after joining, the action carousel. Other surfaces are either sliding panels triggered from the topbar (no URL of their own) or deep-link sub-paths for hosts and tooling.
Pages
| URL | What it's for |
|---|---|
/spaces/:space_id/ | Arena viewer — the splash. Branding, headline, and the Participate / Sign in cards. After joining, the action carousel renders here. |
/spaces/:space_id/report/ | Report — published analyses the host has shared with the community. The Phase 4 revenue split (10% platform · 60% host · 30% contributors) flows through here. |
Topbar panels (no URL)
Triggered from icons in the arena topbar; they slide in over the viewer instead of taking you to a new page. They live next to the viewer at the same /spaces/:space_id/ URL.
| Trigger | Panel | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
 Overview icon | Overview panel | Host's narrative pitch — what this Space is about, who it's for, why you should care. Creators see an inline editor here; non-creators see read-only. |
| Settings (gear) | Settings panel | Theme · language · logout. For hosts, also lists installed and available Apps (General, Files, Analyzes, Panels, Incentive Pool) — install / open settings here. |
 Bell icon | Notification panel | In-app notifications for activity in this Space. |
Host deep links
Hosts mostly reach these through the panels above. The URLs exist for tooling, e2e tests, and shareable bookmarks.
| URL | What it's for |
|---|---|
/spaces/:space_id/actions/... | Action editors — per-action-type sub-paths. e.g. /actions/polls/:poll_id, /actions/discussions/:discussion_id/edit. |
/spaces/:space_id/apps/<slug> | App settings — e.g. /apps/general, /apps/files, /apps/panels. Same destination the Settings panel → app row → Settings button takes you. |
Deep links
/spaces/:space_id/discussions/:discussion_id— open a single discussion as its own page (great for sharing on social)./spaces/:space_id/discussions/:discussion_id/comments/:comment_id— open a discussion and scroll directly to a specific comment, with the comment highlighted. Use this when you want to send someone exactly the reply you're talking about.
Discussion deep links survive URL normalization — they keep working when posted into Bluesky, X, LinkedIn, or Slack. Comment deep links do the same.
Discovering Spaces
There are a few natural entry points:
From a profile. Every user lists the Spaces they host or actively participate in (/<your-handle>/spaces).
From your feed. Posts can announce a Space, and the Space link drops you straight into the arena.- From a notification. When a host adds an action to a Space you've joined, you'll get a nudge with a direct link to the new quest.
Joining a Space
Joining a Space is the moment your Essence pipeline starts collecting structured signal from your participation in it. From the Index page, you'll see a Participate card; sign in (or connect a wallet, if the host requires verification), and you're in.
What "joining" means in practice:
- You can open every action the host has published.
- Your votes, comments, follow choices, and quiz answers are tied to your account and become EssenceSources you own.
- If the Space has an Incentive Pool, you become eligible to receive a share when actions are completed.
- You'll receive notifications when the host posts a new action, publishes a report, or replies to a comment you wrote.
The participation flow
When you click Participate for the first time, Ratel walks you through three quick steps before the action carousel opens.
- Sign in or sign up. Logged-out visitors see a Sign In card on the splash. New users can sign up directly from the Space — Ratel emails a verification code, you set a password and handle, and you land back on the Space already authenticated.
- Consent modal. A ConsentModal appears the first time you participate. It explains what data the host collects (the actions you complete, your participant role, any panel attributes you opt into) and asks you to tick the agreement checkbox. You can't continue until you check it. This is one-time per Space — re-visiting later skips it.
- Prerequisite checklist. If the host has marked any Action as a prerequisite — typically a short pre-survey poll — a PrerequisiteCard shows up next with a checklist. Until you complete every prerequisite, the rest of the action carousel stays hidden. Click a prerequisite item to open it in the full-screen overlay (Poll / Quiz / Discussion), submit, and the card flips green.
Once both gates are cleared, the regular action carousel becomes available and you're a full participant.
Anonymous Spaces (see Host Actions → Anonymous participation) skip the consent step's identity-binding language but still ask for the data-collection agreement. Your votes are recorded against an anonymous handle in those Spaces.
Phase 0's full Essence pipeline — embedding every Space action into your personal knowledge base — is on the way. Until it ships, your activity is recorded and rewarded normally; the embedding layer is added on top later, retroactively.
Walkthrough
🎬 Walkthrough: opening a Space and exploring the arena, panels, and action carousel.
Where to go next
This chapter has several sub-pages — by role and by host workflow:
- Space Apps — the host's toolkit. Info pages, files, AI-assisted reports, panels, the Incentive Pool.
- Space Actions — the participant's quest board. Discussions, polls, quizzes, follows, meets — and how doing them feeds your Essence.
- Space Dashboard — the host's live stats: card grid + participant ranking.
- Host Actions — host-side editors for creating Discussions, Polls, Quizzes, and Follows.
- Reports — the AI-assisted longform Report and the cross-filter Analyzes that feed it.