M2a — Live standalone chat

[mdheller]

Goal

Make Noetica demonstrably work end-to-end in standalone mode without requiring SourceOS or Neuronpedia credentials.

DONE when

• A message sent to Claude Sonnet or an OpenAI model returns a real response from the provider.
• Governance trail shows model_routed, provider, and latency_ms from the actual provider call.
• Typing indicator appears during inflight request.
• Steering panel handles all model capability tiers cleanly:
  • full: steering controls visible but missing Neuronpedia key returns status: not_configured.
  • local: clearly marked as requiring SourceOS / Agent Machine local inference.
  • none: blackbox provider path shows provenance/tamper-evidence posture, not SAE steering.
• No NEURONPEDIA_API_KEY is required for M2a completion.
• CI green on the merge commit.

NOT in M2a

• Real steering diff. That is M2b.
• SourceOS routing. That is M3.
• Memory-mesh integration. That is M3.
• Google / Meta / Mistral adapters. They may be added later but do not block M2a.

Boundary rule

M2a must not represent prompt steering, system prompts, or few-shot examples as SAE steering. Blackbox providers are provenance-only from a mechanistic-steering perspective.

Acceptance evidence expected

• PR link.
• CI run link / status.
• Manual smoke notes showing at least one successful Anthropic or OpenAI standalone response with governance trail fields populated.

[mdheller]

Interface prototype source for M2a: anychat_neuronpedia_v2.html supplied in planning. Use it as a visual/reference contract for compact sidebar, model grouping, provider badges, Neuronpedia control posture, typing state, and chat layout. Preserve Noetica authority/steering-tier doctrine from PR #1; do not copy the prototype's simulated steering behavior as real SAE behavior.

[mdheller]

Triage — M2a live standalone chat: Product milestone. End-to-end standalone mode without SourceOS/Neuronpedia credentials. Governance trail required. Depends on model routing and provider credentials configuration. Check if noetica start + chat flow currently reaches provider — if yes, this may be partially or fully done.