onboarding

01 | welcomewell done.

Step one was "scan the code on the screen." Seeing as you're reading this, you did it.

This page is the manual. It's short, because the interesting part isn't what it does now. It's what you'll make it do later.

keycaps3d printedtwo mx switches

enclosureprinted, friction fit, no screws

displayst7789v2, 320 x 170

scroll wheelrotary encoder3d printed wheel

pcbesp32-s3 superminismd componentsvibration motor

fig. 01 your lith, exploded · every part, in the order it goes together.

scroll ↓

part one

How lith. works

02 | out of the boxit's a pomodoro timer.

Right now your lith runs its founding firmware: a focus timer built on the pomodoro method. Twenty-five minutes of work, five of rest.

Turn the wheel to set the length, then tap the first key to start. Tap it again to pause, hold it to reset the phase.
The screen counts down. Nothing to press until it ends.
When a block ends, lith buzzes and rolls into a 5 minute break. Tap the second key to skip ahead; hold it to choose which setting the wheel edits.
Every fourth break is a long one.

by the way: the QR splash you scanned retires itself after the first ten boots.

That is lith doing what it does by default; everything from here is how you change what it does.

part two

How to change what lith. does

03 | one stone, many toolsthe timer is just the first shape.

Chat with Oldowan, our co-design agent. Answer a few multiple-choice questions about what you want your lith to do, and it shapes the tool you described and sends it to your lith, straight from the browser.

lith as it arrives: the screen reads FOCUS above 25:00 in black on orange, with four small dots under the numbers — fig. 02the same lith, one sentence apart · both screens are real device output.

the same lith afterwards: FOCUS above 50:00 in white on a dark screen, with three filled squares along the bottom, one for each block finished — fig. 02the same lith, one sentence apart · both screens are real device output.

A macropad, a bus countdown, a word of the day, or back to the pomodoro whenever you want.

knap /nap/ · verb · to shape a stone tool by striking flakes from it. Here: to shape your lith by describing the tool you want.

04 | knapp your owntwo ways to shape it.

Talk to an agent, or open an IDE and wire it up yourself. Both start from the same hardware.

agent

chat with oldowan

Oldowan, named after the oldest known stone toolkit, is the agent you knapp with. Describe the tool you want, answer a few multiple-choice questions, and it sends the result to your lith. No code required, though you can read every line it writes.

open the knapping bench →

diy

wire it up yourself

Prefer Arduino IDE, PlatformIO, or your own coding agent at the wheel? Here's the hardware ground truth, down to the timing rules that keep the encoder feeling immediate instead of laggy.

pin map + display init
libraries already on the server
engineering heuristics from bring-up

download hardware.md →

you

I want my lith to remind me to water the plants.

oldowan

Good use of a stone. How should it remind you?

a a plant sprite that wilts on screen until you press the button

b a gentle chime every morning at a set time

c only when the soil sensor I'll wire up says so

… or type your own answer

you'll need a laptop for the last step. Sending your changes to lith happens down the USB cable, from Chrome or Edge on a laptop or desktop. Not phones, and not Firefox or Safari. Start shaping on the phone you're holding and finish on a laptop; the bench hands you a four-character code that opens the same conversation over there.

what that actually does

Oldowan compiles your knapp on the build server; the browser uploads it over Web Serial, which only Chrome and Edge on a desktop support.

The code stands for the conversation rather than for you: it lasts ten minutes, works once, and carries no account with it. Type it into the bench on your laptop and the whole chat is waiting: the questions, your answers, and anything you'd already put in to build.

05 | the knapperytools are for sharing.

Every knapp can be published: anybody can put it on their own lith, star it, and discuss it. Always read the code before you take a stranger's knapp: every listing has a report button and a small model flags anything that looks off, but nothing is blocked automatically.

open the knappery →

06 | that's itgo focus.

Press the button on your lith and get 25 minutes of something done. If you wish it did something else, knapp it.

back to lith.vidalion.co →