Construct is not a new chat app and not a swarm of specialist personas. It is a capability-aware layer bound to one project: constitution, sources, skills, workflows, and a permission lattice. You keep working in the host you already use; Construct remembers what is true, what must not be violated, and which decisions are still yours.
Three commands.
Install the alpha CLI
npm install -g @geraldmaron/construct@alphaBind a project (example: Cursor)
cd ~/your-project && construct init --client=cursorCheck the binding
construct status && construct doctorI build Construct in the open as dogfood for how I actually work with agent hosts. The alpha line is under architectural cutover — nothing is promised stable — and the bar is honesty about limits: legal and licensed judgments stay research and preparation, never advice or sign-off.
construct init writes .construct/ (project, constitution, sources, registry lock — committed) and a runtime database under .construct/state/ (ignored). It reads the repo, proposes a profile with provenance, and plants the operational skill into your host.
Proposed statements wait in construct inbox until you confirm or retire them. Nothing inferred becomes fact on its own.
In session you answer questions, remember constraints in your wording, manage outcomes through resolved workflows, or define standing outcomes an external clock can fire. The CLI stays for setup, inspection, scripting, and recovery.
Every action sits on a tier from observe and draft up through project write, external write, destructive, and licensed judgment. Denials name what failed and the smallest step-up.
Approvals cover one tier, one target, one workflow, one executor, and they expire. Standing grants and break-glass are scoped the same way — wildcards never cover destruction, and licensed judgment is never Construct's to take.
Construct never switches hosts or spends through another executor because one is installed. Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, and OpenCode wire by project config; Codex and similar hosts can take the skill and point at construct serve. A headless runner exists only when you configure one, and it cannot decide, grant, remember, or finalize on its own.
Source, issues, and the actual code.