3.3 Le Compost

3.3 Le Compost

In Standard Garden, abandoned notes return to the earth. This protocol defines how anonymous content expires — and why that’s a feature, not a flaw.

Anonymous Note Lifecycle

When you plant a note without an account:

  • It lives at standard.garden/a/{id} — the /a/ is for Annual: a plant that blooms for a season
  • It expires 7 days after creation
  • After expiry, it disappears from the garden and is removed by the daily composting cycle

The deletion is real. The compost job runs every day and permanently removes expired notes — content, attachments, and search index. We don’t keep ghost copies. If you want a thought to survive the season, give it roots: create an account.

Keeping a Note (becoming Perennial)

Create a free account

Open the Command Palette → ::login. Email + 6-digit code (or a passkey — FaceID / TouchID). Your notes now live at standard.garden/@username/slug and never expire.

The Perennial Membership

For those who have decided to put down deep roots:

  • Unlimited notes — tend as many plots as you need
  • Private notes — a section of the garden only you can enter
  • Custom domain — your own address in the wild (coming soon)

The garden asks for nothing more than a gentle, seasonal contribution. You may leave when the season ends.

Why Composting?

Sustainability is natural law

Dead wood accumulates. Fallen leaves must return to the earth so the living forest can breathe. By composting abandoned notes, the garden stays light — which is how the clearing remains genuinely open, and how every note earns its place under the canopy.

Impermanence has value

The 7-day season is an invitation to commit. It asks a simple question: was this worth keeping? If yes — one login, and it’s yours forever. If no — it feeds the soil. Natural cycles, applied to text.

Respect

Unlike platforms that hoard everything forever: unclaimed content doesn’t clutter the system, and your right to be forgotten is the default for anonymous writing.

Philosophy

“Composting is part of the design. Not everything needs to last forever. The garden grows, blooms, and returns to soil.”

See Also

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