sol and the journal: what's the difference?

solstone is the platform. sol is the app. the journal is the memory it keeps. two names, two jobs — here's what each one is and why they're separate.

sol: the app you talk to

sol is the software you install on each device — your laptop, your phone, wherever you want it. sol lives on your devices, experiences your day with you, and keeps it all in your journal. it's the who you ask and the thing that runs — one and the same. there's no separate assistant hiding behind sol's name.

from a terminal, you talk to sol directly:

sol call support search "what you're stuck on"

(exactly how you reach sol depends on the device — a menu-bar app, a chat surface, or a cli — but it's always sol underneath.)

the journal: the memory sol keeps

the journal is where everything sol takes in alongside you actually lives — organized by date, portable, yours. it's not a hidden cache: it's a folder of dated content on a computer you choose (mac, linux, or windows) — something you can back up, move, or hand down.

your journal is always private, only yours. that's not a setting you turn on — it's the covenant sol pbc is legally bound to (Article 8 of our articles of incorporation).

why solstone splits them into two installs

sol needs to be everywhere you are — phone, laptop, whatever device you're using in the moment. the journal needs to live somewhere durable — one machine you trust, not scattered across every device sol runs on. so they ship separately:

• sol — install it per device; it's the app you interact with.
• the journal — install it once, on the mac / linux / windows machine you want holding your memory. sol on every device reaches into that one journal.
• both — a single download gets you sol and the journal on the same machine, if that's simpler for your setup.

how the split shows up day to day

• sol --version checks the app; journal --version checks the host running your journal — see keeping solstone up to date.
• everyday commands run through sol; operating the journal itself (restarts, setup) runs through journal — see when a lot seems broken at once: check convey first.
• stuck on something else? see getting help with solstone.