Canonadr

ADR-2026-08-31-01 — AI Workbench supersedes Twin Workbench

Status: Accepted
Date: 2026-08-31
Supersedes: PRODUCT_FRAMING_LOCK.md §8, §15 · SPINEWORKSPACE_CANONICAL_PRODUCT_MANUAL.md layer 10
Gap: G-03

ID note: this tree uses date-namespaced ADR IDs because two legacy sequences both start at
ADR-001. See ../README.md.

Context

Two documents in the repository defined the AI-side operating environment as Twin Workbench —
"the agentic work environment used by the user's Twin." Both read as authoritative: the Framing
Lock was marked CURRENT PRODUCT FRAMING, and the Product Manual was headed "THE DEFINITIVE
END-STATE MODEL… frozen source of truth."

That model makes the environment per-user and Twin-owned. It has two consequences the founder
decisions reject:

  1. It conflates the actor with the environment. Twin becomes the workbench rather than something
    working inside one.
  2. It leaves Spine Agents without a home. If the environment belongs to a user's Twin, governed
    organizational agents have nowhere to operate.

Decision

The AI-side operating environment is the AI Workbench. It is the AI operating surface over the
same Business Context Spine that the Human Workbench projects.

Twin is not the AI Workbench. Twin is the human-facing contextual AI coworker operating
inside the AI Workbench.

The AI Workbench hosts Twin and Spine Agents. It is not scoped to a single user's Twin.

The term Twin Workbench is retired.

Consequences

  • SpineWorkspace has two first-class operating environments: Human Workbench (primary user
    surface) and AI Workbench (AI operating surface).
  • Spine Agents gain a defined place to operate, which unblocks G-05.
  • Both superseding documents are stamped and remain in the tree as lineage.
  • Coworker — resolved as retired. Coworker was a sibling layer to Twin Workbench in the
    Product Manual (layer 9). An earlier revision of this ADR left its fate open pending a founder
    decision. The Founder Canon settles it: "coworker" appears only as a common noun describing
    Twin     — "Twin is the human-facing contextual AI coworker operating within the AI Workbench"
    (§0.3 item 6, §32) — and Appendix C item 5 names the human-AI interface as Twin, with no
    Coworker beside it. It is therefore absorbed into Twin, not a separate concept.
  • No code changes follow directly from this ADR. Its effect is on naming, and on
    ADR-2026-08-31-02, which gives the AI Workbench's
    occupants their own continuity.