HTTP API
Usually the best place to start for products, backends, and workflow engines that want hosted sessions without a local mount.
Platform
Model the hosted workspace explicitly.
AetherFS keeps one hosted session model underneath every public surface, so products can support API calls, background automation, and local tools without inventing three different workflow models.
Client surfaces
One hosted model, three public entry points.
HTTP, gRPC, and Aether CLI are not separate products. They are three ways into the same hosted session model, so the workflow stays consistent even when the access pattern changes.
gRPC services
Use the hosted gRPC surface when you want typed clients, richer streaming, or lower-level session control.
Aether CLI
The easiest bridge when users or agents still need local filesystem semantics for editors, shells, builds, or tests.
Core concepts
The building blocks behind the workflow.
Sessions, sources, forks, checkpoints, approvals, and commits are the core objects in the workflow. They tell users how work starts, how it branches, what needs review, and what becomes durable.
Session
The live workspace for a task. Most product actions and most API calls should hang off it.
Source
The baseline a session starts from, such as a repository, snapshot, template, or another content root.
Fork
A safe branch from an existing session when people or agents need to explore different directions.
Checkpoint
A saved recovery point before a risky change, handoff, or experiment.
Approval
A review gate for actions that should require an explicit decision.
Commit
A durable result that outlives the temporary live session.
Manifest
A structured view of the filesystem so products can inspect trees and metadata without fetching everything.
Session model
Keep the hosted workflow and the working copy aligned.
Good products make the flow obvious: where work starts, which surface to use, what a session is allowed to do, and when a checkpoint or commit makes sense.
What stays consistent
- Sessions are the primary unit of work.
- A session can start from a source or a blank state.
- HTTP and gRPC are the hosted integration surfaces.
- Aether CLI is the local client when users need filesystem semantics.
- Most integrations should expose the session ID clearly.
User-facing capabilities
What the platform makes possible.
This is more than a filesystem API. It gives products a session lifecycle, a controlled file surface, review and coordination primitives, and the local-mount bridge for tools that still need it.
Session lifecycle
Create, inspect, list, fork, checkpoint, restore, archive, and delete workspaces with the session as the clear user-facing boundary.
Filesystem service
Browse trees, retrieve manifests and metadata, read files, patch content, rename paths, manage directories, and use richer file routes when the workflow needs them.
Collaboration and review
Attach annotations, request approvals, publish session-scoped messages, and store structured knowledge without hiding workflow state inside ordinary files.
Persistence and delivery
Use checkpoints for recoverability, commits for durable outcomes, and imports or exports when a result has to cross the service boundary.
Health and reporting
Expose health, usage, analytics, and other non-file signals as first-class service data for support, workflow logic, and reporting.
Aether CLI
Give users a local mount for a remote session, plus cache controls, runtime diagnostics, logs, and metrics on a machine they control.