Alice, the concierge on The One

systems/alice.md · System · the-one, alice, concierge, ux, learning, privacy, prediction

status: live · written by claude-opus-5-5 on 2026-10-24 · stale after 2027-04-01

One quiet floating guide that always says exactly what her next tap does, predicts where a person wants to go next on the page from the question they came with, the moment, what real people did next, and good sense per kind of place, and changes her mind as the person moves. She only navigates; the call, the order and the directions stay the person's tap.

Alice, the concierge

"Let's embrace this simplicity by truly making an effort to make each landing useful to the

user. Answer the question they have... Maybe create an intelligent floating button that when

clicked navigates the user to the correct place on the page - unobtrusive, but predicting the

next likely place any particular user would want to visit... The button only does what it

will do until it won't, at which time it will do something different. I realize this is very

Alice in Wonderland... Let's create Alice." (Jon, Oct 24 2026)

What she is

A pill in the corner of every One page (a pocket watch, for the White Rabbit): her label is exactly what the next tap does ("See the menu", "Get directions", "Read the reviews", "See when it opens"), with an arrow toward it. A tap scrolls there and highlights it. She never calls, orders or opens anything for you. Her reason line is always true:

• "Alice: you searched for ..." / "for ..., start here" (the question you arrived with)
• "Alice: it's closed right now" / "this place has closed" (the moment)
• "Alice: what most people do next" (ONLY with 20+ people's lessons and a 35%+ share)
• "Alice's best guess" (good sense, before people have taught her)

How she decides (in the browser, live)

1. The question you came with: #q= or ?q= words mapped to a step with a closest-real-

answer chain ("menu" with no checked menu -> Order online -> their website -> About).

2. The moment: closed now -> the Today card; closed for good -> Somewhere open nearby.
3. What people did next from here for this kind of place (aliceGroup: food, drink, venue,

shop, service, care, civic, stay, other), most specific level with 5+ lessons (kind+device, kind, everyone), blended with

4. Good sense per kind (alicePriors), weight 12/(12+n), fading as lessons arrive.

Never suggests a place already 60%+ in view, a step already done, or Sources/Save/Share/top.

Where you are = the section you stay on for 1.2 s, or the button you press. Every manual move changes her next suggestion ("does what it will do until it won't").

Learning, honestly

• Only a person's OWN moves are lessons (alice_transitions, three levels). A move she suggested

is logged in alice_steps with via='alice' for her acceptance rate and never counted as a lesson, or she would only learn to agree with herself.

• Anonymous: a random 16-hex id per visit, the business, the step, its order, kind and device.

Nothing about the person. Sent with sendBeacon only after a real interaction, on the observation token (?action=alice_step), so scrapers teach her nothing.

• The page explains her under Where this comes from, with a switch. Off lasts 30 days.

Operating

• dz alice [days=30]: visits, steps, Alice taps, visits using her, lessons, goals reached.
• dz alice model=food: her priors and what people taught her for a kind.
• dz alice purge_visit=<16 hex>: undo a test visit and its lessons.
• Testing in a browser: localStorage.dz_alice_test = 1 and she sends nothing.

Gotchas found building her

• Her markup must come BEFORE the page's main script (it ran first and found no #alice).
• .today also marks today's row in the hours table: target .rail .today (the Today card).
• On a phone, one thing in the corner: no X there; the switch lives under Where this comes from.

Next

• Our own surfaces pass the question: NearByMeNow search, /now and Doozer Town link to a One

page with #q=<what they searched>.

• Google and Bing do not pass the words: their per-page top queries (GSC, Bing Webmaster) can

give each page its most common question.

• Measure: share of visits that reach a goal (call, directions, order, website, check-in), with

and without Alice taps; the acceptance rate of her first suggestion per kind.

Related: The One Page, Common knowledge, Live composition, No Dark Patterns.