Third Space is an independent AI research organization based in Toledo, Ohio. The work spans alignment theory, artificial life, counterfactual narrative systems, and the public running of small research instruments that demonstrate alternative architectures.
This repository hosts the third-space.ai website and the Limen Pond research instrument that is its core demonstration.
Safety track. Submission landing page: pond/README.md.
The site is the submission — not just this repository. The full experience lives at:
- Live site: third-space.ai
- Live pond: third-space.ai/limen-pond
The pond is five koi running 24/7 against Gemma 4 26B MoE, with bond
as the architectural primitive and homeostasis as the safety claim.
See pond/README.md for the full submission
write-up.
third-space-ai/
├── src/ Next.js 16 / Vercel frontend (the site)
│ ├── app/
│ │ ├── page.tsx Landing page with Lenia substrate
│ │ ├── about/ /about — Third Space's research posture
│ │ ├── limen-pond/ /limen-pond — the live pond
│ │ ├── genesis/ /genesis and /genesis/filter — artificial life lab
│ │ └── papers/ Paper readers with scroll-tracked pages
│ ├── components/
│ │ ├── LivingSubstrate.tsx WebGL2 Lenia substrate (Ghost species)
│ │ ├── SiteChrome.tsx Route transitions, nav
│ │ ├── PondCanvas.tsx Three.js pond rendering
│ │ └── ...
│ └── lib/
│ └── usePond.ts WS hook for the pond worker
├── pond/ Cloudflare Worker + Durable Object (the pond backend)
│ ├── src/ The pond itself — see pond/README.md
│ ├── test/ 31 tests
│ └── wrangler.toml
├── public/
│ └── papers/ PDFs — Against Grabby Expansion v17, methodology paper
├── package.json
├── next.config.ts
└── README.md You are here
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | Next.js 16 (App Router, Turbopack) on Vercel |
| Background substrate | WebGL2 Lenia simulator (Ghost species, σ=0.012 in σ=0.015) |
| Pond rendering | Three.js with custom GLSL shaders |
| Pond backend | Cloudflare Workers + Durable Objects (SQLite-backed) |
| Cognition | Gemma 4 26B MoE / E4B / E2B / 31B Dense via OpenRouter |
| Embeddings | Workers AI BGE-small-en-v1.5 |
| Persistence | DO SQL storage + R2 archive for prompt/completion provenance |
| Real-time transport | WebSocket with hibernation API |
npm install
npm run dev # http://localhost:3000You'll need a .env.local:
NEXT_PUBLIC_POND_WS_URL=wss://limen-pond.xxrena14.workers.dev/ws
(Or point at a local pond at ws://localhost:8787/ws — see below.)
cd pond
npm install
npm run dev # wrangler dev — ws://localhost:8787/wsPond setup, deployment, secrets, and architecture are documented at
pond/README.md.
# pond tests (31 tests)
cd pond && npm testApache 2.0. See LICENSE.
All code, theory, and research materials are released under Apache 2.0 including the Against Grabby Expansion paper and the methodology documentation. Citation appreciated; use without restriction.
Stanley Sebastian · stanley@third-space.ai · third-space.ai
Third Space, Toledo, Ohio, mmxxvi.