A local-first AI assistant for civic engagement. Chronicle OS’s first real child.
Named after “Samaritan” — the good neighbor who helps — Samara is a local-first AI assistant designed to reduce friction in democratic participation. It monitors local government activity, tracks elected officials, facilitates public comment, and makes civic engagement as easy as asking a question.
Core Mission: Make it easier to participate in local democracy than to ignore it.
Design Principles
- Local-first, cloud-optional: Your data lives on your machine, not corporate servers
- Multi-model orchestration: A council of AIs — Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, local Llama
- Open protocols: No vendor lock-in, works with any calendar/email/notes system
- Transparent operations: All actions auditable, all decisions explainable
- User sovereignty: You own your data, your instance, your civic engagement records
What Samara Does
Samara turns the question “What’s my city council voting on tonight?” into an instant answer. It drafts emails to representatives, tracks their responses, matches volunteer opportunities to your availability, and builds an accountability dashboard that tells you whether your elected officials are voting in line with your values.
When 1,000 people have Samara: a collective database of representative accountability. When 100,000 have it: real-time tracking of every local official in America. Officials know constituents are watching. Always.
This is the good-guy use of AI coordination — not corporate surveillance, but civic vigilance.