PLwC — Personality Layer with Conscience

PLwC is a local, model-independent governance gateway for AI tool access, persistent context and controlled memory. It is not the agent and it is not the language model. It is the independent control layer between the AI host, the model and local tools.

AI host / model
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PLwC governance gateway
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tools, files, profiles, memory and sandbox

PLwC exposes one visible MCP server, routes all capabilities through policy and governance checks, and provides workspace, document, sandbox, profile, reflection and audit-oriented controls. The gateway is designed for MCP-capable hosts in general. Claude Desktop is a packaged and smoke-tested route, but the boundary remains useful when a host, such as ChatGPT Work, Claude or another MCP client, also offers its own file access or agent features.

Status

• Current product version: PLwC 1.0.0; distribution remains a pre-release until the external browser Store gates pass.
• This repository retains a privacy-filtered public release boundary. Private development history, local evidence, real profiles and workspace data are intentionally not included.
• Version 1.0.0 contains the complete eight-tool governed Gateway and the PLwC Chat Bridge 1.0 integration for Chrome, Brave and Edge.
• The explicit unsigned Windows candidate is PLwC-Setup-1.0.0-installer-r24.exe, SHA-256 b00c5298bf6faa76c5910ecbb36497a8aa4764a8a3720f73a450851a3fc3e4d0. It is available from the versioned GitHub pre-release.
• Internal source, installed-update, Bridge, extension and installer gates pass. On 2026-08-30, the private Chrome submission entered pending review with automatic publication disabled, and the hidden/link-only Edge submission entered review. Store approval, controlled availability and Store-signed live-browser acceptance remain separate gates.
• The current Windows Setup and packaged MCPB are not signed.

PLwC is not production-certified. It is local infrastructure under active development.

What PLwC is - and what it is not

PLwC is:

• an MCP gateway, not its own agent;
• a local governance boundary between model requests and tool execution;
• model- and host-independent policy for MCP-capable hosts;
• controlled memory, profile and persona management through explicit profile, reflection and Governor flows;
• a single public MCP boundary named plwc-gateway.

PLwC is not:

• a standalone AI platform;
• a desktop agent;
• the language model or a replacement for the user's chosen AI host;
• a full proxy for all model traffic;
• protection for data that a user or host sends directly to a cloud model outside PLwC;
• permission to expose raw PLfC/PBA or Desktop Commander MCP servers beside the gateway.

What PLwC does

• Exposes exactly one visible MCP server: plwc-gateway.
• Provides exactly eight public facade tools (see below).
• Controls workspace operations (read / write / search / move / rename / exact replace / batch read).
• Creates and reads DOCX, XLSX, PPTX and PDF artifacts.
• Inspects, extracts, merges, splits and rotates PDFs.
• Inspects, extracts and creates ZIP archives with bounded safety limits.
• Reads workspace raster images and returns them as MCP image content blocks (PNG, JPEG, WEBP, first-frame GIF).
• Runs sandboxed Python and Shell snippets through Docker, with no silent fallback to a host shell.
• Manages profiles, reflection writes, memory and persona governance, and Governor plan / apply flows including reflection_condensation with plan_id apply.
• Blocks protected profile and governance paths from direct workspace writes.
• Emits structured local audit events for high-risk operations.

Public tools

PLwC 1.0 exposes exactly these eight public facade tools:

The 19 individual public tool names from earlier scaffolds (plwc_compile_profile, plwc_write_workspace_file, plwc_governor_plan, plwc_write_reflection, ...) are no longer public in v1.0. Their behavior is reachable through the eight facade tools above via operation / scope / lang dispatch parameters.

Document capabilities

• DOCX Creation V2 (layouts, styles, runs, lists, tables, images, page breaks).
• XLSX Creation V2 (multi-sheet, formatting, formulas-as-written (not executed), freeze panes, boolean auto_filter, merges).
• PPTX Creation V2 (five slide layouts, content elements, tables, images, slide sizes, plain-text speaker notes).
• PDF Creation V2 (layout-PDF builder with A4/A5/landscape/custom page sizes, headings, paragraph runs, bullet/numbered lists, tables, images, explicit page breaks).
• read_image (governed workspace image reads).
• ZIP create / inspect / extract.
• PDF inspect / extract / merge / split / rotate / extract_pdf_text.

Security model

• One visible gateway server. No bypass MCP servers are exposed.
• Protected profile and governance files (PERSONA.md, memory.md, reflection.md, governance/config.yaml, ...) cannot be edited through workspace operations.
• Workspace operations are scoped to configured roots; parent traversal, absolute host paths, UNC paths and protected segments are rejected.
• Docker-backed Python and Shell sandbox; no silent host-shell fallback.
• Fail-closed behavior on missing engines, missing Docker image, or policy denial.
• No external URL fetching for document assets (PDF V2, PPTX V2 and DOCX V2 image paths must be workspace-relative).

Known limitations

The following are intentionally not implemented in v1.0:

• No OCR.
• No PDF redaction.
• No digital signing.
• No form filling or form creation.
• No PDF/A claim.
• No LibreOffice or Pandoc conversion.
• No macro execution (no .docm / .xlsm / .pptm generation).
• No external URL fetching, no network access at runtime.
• No JavaScript in PDFs.
• No HTML/CSS rendering pipeline.

Installation

For step-by-step installation, see docs/QUICKSTART_CLAUDE_DESKTOP.md.

For full installation context, prerequisites and configuration options, including local GPT and Odysseus stdio setup plus hosted ChatGPT web/custom-app status, see docs/INSTALLATION.md.

The selectable Windows EXE installer is maintained under installer/windows. The current r24 candidate packages the Gateway, Claude MCPB, Codex and Odysseus STDIO preparation, and the local PLwC Chat Bridge. It detects complete existing installations, preserves their paths and settings, and uses stable gateway and bridge directory names for new installs. Its gated build and validation status is documented in installer/windows/V_MODEL.md. The public r24 artifact is explicitly unsigned and remains a pre-release candidate.

The bilingual end-user flow, including language selection, administrator approval, download/storage estimates and Chrome/Edge Bridge setup, is described in docs/WINDOWS_INSTALLER_GUIDE.md.

Documentation