Reference

Lineage & changelog

The public name is Plectis. Microcosm remains only as the historical name of this project and as a technical compatibility label for old routes, package ids, generated state, and published links.

21 June 2026: Microcosm became Plectis

A closer check against the history of hypertext systems showed that Microcosm was already the name of the Southampton open hypermedia system associated with Wendy Hall and colleagues, with public Southampton material placing Wendy Hall's Microcosm work in the mid-1980s and Hugh Davis's Southampton profile describing early open hypermedia versions in 1989. This project was renamed Plectis to avoid confusion and to acknowledge that earlier lineage.

This acknowledgement does not imply endorsement, affiliation, or review by Wendy Hall, the University of Southampton, W3C, or anyone connected with the earlier Microcosm system. It is a naming and lineage note, not a claim of institutional backing.

Compatibility

Technical identifiers required for compatibility have not been renamed merely for branding. The repository path, package ids, .microcosm/ local state, historical source references, old JSON packets, and previously published links may still contain Microcosm where changing them would break inspection or route continuity.

The preferred current public identity is Plectis. Microcosm is a historical and compatibility label, never a second active brand.

Acknowledgements

This section thanks people whose feedback changed the public site or the system behind it. It records gratitude, not endorsement, affiliation, or review.

Mark Bernstein of Eastgate Systems looked at an early version of this site. Two of his suggestions are reflected here directly: that the name Microcosm collided with the earlier Southampton hypertext system, which led to the rename above, and that the unusual vocabulary needed a glossary, which is the glossary. Credited with his permission.

Compatibility matrix

The generated legacy manifest currently declares 45 old-route compatibility rows: 15 byte-compatible machine aliases and 26 human HTML transition routes. Old JSON packets, download files, generated assets, and projection-status routes remain machine-readable files. Only old human HTML pages use visible transition HTML; validation parses JSON routes and fails if they return HTML.

Machine-readable aliases

15 routes
Machine-readable JSON and static assets are emitted as files so the old URL keeps its content type.
Content types: application/atom+xml; charset=utf-8, application/javascript; charset=utf-8, application/json; charset=utf-8, text/css; charset=utf-8
Samples: content-graph.json, content-manifest.json, object-map.json, microcosm-ai-reader-digest.json, microcosm-ai-review-packet.json, assets/search-index.js

Legacy projection status

1 routes
The old projection-status URL returns a legacy JSON status pointer, not an HTML redirect.
Content types: application/json; charset=utf-8
Samples: projection-status.json

Legacy security.txt

2 routes
The old host serves its own security.txt so vulnerability-reporting metadata remains valid while the human-facing site is a tombstone.
Content types: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Samples: .well-known/security.txt, security.txt

Human HTML transitions

26 routes
HTML routes show the transition and may forward to the canonical route; they are not used for machine-readable assets.
Content types: text/html; charset=utf-8
Samples: index.html, docs/index.html, docs/tour.html, docs/open-questions.html, docs/quickstart.html, docs/coding-agents.html

Legacy 404 fallback

1 routes
The GitHub Pages 404 is a visible compatibility fallback, not a server-side redirect.
Content types: text/html; charset=utf-8
Samples: 404.html

Open the full legacy route manifest for the per-path compatibility record.

Historical sources

The historical statement above is source-backed by public Southampton and W3C pages. These links are citations for the naming acknowledgement; they are not affiliation, endorsement, or review claims.