Reference · 3 min read
Architecture concepts
How Miton works in plain English — one project, specialised workspaces, shared goals, memory and permissions — before the engineering deep dives.
- Product stage
- Pre-release development
- Last reviewed
- 2026-07-23
- Successful result
- The change is visible in the active project.
Who this is for: curious users who want the product’s big picture before choosing a task guide.
How Miton works (60-second version)
Miton is a chat-first AI workspace on your machine. You describe what you want; Miton plans, writes, runs tools, and shows results in the conversation.
- One chat carries context across everything you do in a project.
- Four specialised workspaces — Writer, Canvas, Code, and Automation — organise the same project for different kinds of work. Chat remains available throughout.
- Your keys, your data — API keys live in the OS keychain; projects live in folders you control.
- You choose the guardrails — workspace trust plus a per-session steering mode (Confirm is the safe default) decide what runs without asking.
The work changes shape. The project does not.
The sections below explain the complete public model without requiring source or contributor documentation.
The specialised workspaces
| Surface | Best for |
|---|---|
| Writer | Long-form text, citations, tracked changes, export |
| Canvas | No-code apps — pages, components, publish |
| Code | Software — editor, terminal, git, search |
| Automation | Recurring workflows — schedules, webhooks, visual graphs |
All four share one agent engine, one memory store, one model router, one permission layer, and one undo stack. Switching surface changes defaults and tools, not the project underneath.
Surface how-tos: handbook index.
The agent engine
The engine is a loop: read your prompt → call the model → parse the response → run tools → render results in chat. It is shared across surfaces and extended with skills, sub-agents, and custom commands.
Memory
Memory stacks in layers that compose into the agent’s context each turn:
| Layer | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Session log | Messages in the active chat |
| Session archive | Past sessions for this project |
| Project memory | MITON.md, .miton/rules/, plan, goals |
| Cross-session memory | Preferences and corrections you have taught Miton |
Smart routing
Each turn, Miton picks a model using your routing profile (free through premium), task complexity,
budget state, and quality preference. Change profile per session in the model chip or with
/profile.
Permissions and safety
Trust (per folder) and steering mode (per session) compose to decide what the agent may read, write, and run. A safety layer scans prompts and tool output, redacts sensitive egress, and enforces gates before actions execute.
Reference: permissions taxonomy.
Cross-surface flows
Evidence that the surfaces share one engine:
| Flow | What it does |
|---|---|
| Promote to project | Turn an Canvas build into a Code project |
| Visualise in canvas | Open a Code component in the designer canvas |
| Convert to workflow | Turn a one-off action into an Automation workflow |
| Generate docs | Produce Writer documents from Code or designer work |
| Workflow from prompt | Sketch a workflow in Automation from natural language |
These are visible buttons in the UI — not hidden power features.
What this page does not cover
- Step-by-step usage — use the task guides linked from Docs.
- Internal package names and contributor implementation records — these are not part of the public product vocabulary.