Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

What is Hopsule?

Hopsule is a decision-first, context-aware, portable memory system specifically designed for AI-forward engineering organizations. It serves as the authoritative layer where teams preserve, enforce, and share their most critical decisions and the reasoning behind them. Unlike traditional systems that focus on static text, Hopsule treats decisions as enforceable entities that provide active guidance within your development workflow. By bridging the gap between high-level governance and daily execution, Hopsule ensures that your organization's collective judgment remains intact as teams scale and technologies evolve.

How is Hopsule different from a traditional text repository or static information silo?

Traditional platforms are often passive environments where information goes to be forgotten; they lack the ability to enforce the standards they contain. Hopsule is built on the philosophy that "enforcement is remembrance, not control," meaning it actively surfaces relevant context and decisions exactly where they are needed, such as in the IDE or during AI agent sessions. While legacy platforms focus on unstructured content, Hopsule focuses on explicit commitments, their lifecycle, and the persistent memories that explain the reasoning behind them. This structure allows Hopsule to provide a "Brain" or Knowledge Graph that visualizes how decisions interconnect, rather than just listing disconnected documents.

Is Hopsule free for individual developers?

Yes, Hopsule offers a robust Free plan that treats solo developers as first-class citizens. We believe that individual engineers benefit immensely from preserving their own architectural context and decision history, especially when moving between different projects or consulting roles. The Free plan includes access to the Hopsule Dashboard, the Hopsule CLI, and the Hopsule for VS Code extension. While there are limits on the number of active Context Packs and team collaboration features, the core experience of decision enforcement and memory preservation remains fully accessible.

Can I use Hopsule as a solo developer?

Absolutely, Hopsule is designed to be highly effective for individual use cases where maintaining long-term context is a challenge. Solo developers often face "context rot" when returning to a project after several months; Hopsule solves this by providing a persistent memory layer that explains why specific choices were made. By using Context Packs, a solo developer can bundle their best practices and architectural decisions to reuse them across multiple independent repositories. This ensures that your personal standards are enforced consistently, even when you are working alone or as a freelancer for multiple clients.

Decisions

What makes a "good" decision in Hopsule?

A good decision in Hopsule is an explicit, actionable commitment that provides clear constraints or guidance for the team. It should be specific enough to be enforceable but broad enough to cover relevant use cases within its scope. Every decision should be accompanied by Memories that explain the "why"—the trade-offs considered, the alternatives rejected, and the specific problems the decision aims to solve. For example, instead of a vague preference, a good decision might specify a particular architectural pattern to be used for all new service integrations, linked to the memory of a previous failure caused by inconsistent patterns.

How many decisions should my team create?

We recommend focusing on high-leverage decisions rather than attempting to capture every minor preference. The goal is to preserve organizational judgment on matters that would cause significant friction or technical debt if ignored or forgotten. Most successful teams start with 10-20 core decisions regarding architecture, security, and development standards, then expand as new patterns emerge. Over-indexing on low-impact decisions can lead to "noise," so we encourage teams to use the Pending state to vet the necessity of a decision before it becomes an Accepted constraint.

Can I delete a decision once it has been accepted?

Hopsule does not allow the deletion of Accepted decisions because doing so would create a gap in your organization's historical memory. Instead, decisions follow a lifecycle where they can be moved to the Deprecated state when they are no longer relevant or have been superseded by a newer decision. Deprecating a decision preserves the record of why that choice was once made and why it was eventually retired, maintaining full traceability. This ensures that future team members can understand the evolution of the system without losing the context of past constraints.

Can I undo the deprecation of a decision?

Yes, if a decision was deprecated prematurely or if the team decides to revert to a previous standard, the status can be updated back to Accepted. When you reactivate a decision, we recommend adding a new Memory entry to explain the reasoning behind the reversal. This adds a layer of transparency to your governance process and ensures the Knowledge Graph accurately reflects the team's current thinking. The full version history of the decision remains intact, showing every transition between states throughout its lifecycle.

Tip: Use the Hopsule Dashboard to view the Knowledge Graph and see how deprecating one decision might impact related constraints in your Context Packs.

Memories

Can I edit or delete a memory entry?

No, Memories in Hopsule are strictly append-only and cannot be edited or deleted once they are committed. This design choice is fundamental to our philosophy of preservation; memories represent a point-in-time record of the reasoning and context that led to a decision. If new information comes to light or if a previous reasoning was flawed, you should add a new Memory entry that provides the updated context. This creates an immutable audit trail of your organization's intellectual journey, ensuring that lessons learned are never overwritten or lost to revisionist history.

Why are memories append-only?

The append-only nature of Memories prevents the "memory leak" that occurs in most organizations when people leave or projects change hands. By making them immutable, we ensure that the original intent and the context of the era in which a decision was made are preserved exactly as they were. This is critical for forensic architectural analysis and for training new team members on the historical "why" behind the current state of the system. It also provides a reliable foundation for Hopper, our AI assistant, to provide accurate historical context without the risk of hallucinating based on incomplete or edited records.

How much detail should I include in a memory?

A memory should include enough detail to recreate the mental model of the decision-makers at the time the entry was created. This typically includes the problem statement, the specific constraints being faced, the alternatives that were considered, and the expected outcome of the decision. You don't need to write a long-form essay; often, a few concise paragraphs or a bulleted list of trade-offs is more effective for future reference. The goal is to provide Hopper and your human colleagues with the necessary context to understand the "organizational judgment" that was applied.

Context Packs (Capsules)

Can I share Capsules outside of my organization?

Yes, Context Packs (or Capsules) are designed to be portable bundles of decisions and memories that can be shared via secure tokens. This is particularly useful for open-source maintainers who want to share their architectural standards with contributors, or for consultants who want to bring a standard set of "best practices" to a new client. When you share a Capsule publicly, you can generate a secure access token that allows others to view and import the decisions into their own Hopsule environment. This portability ensures that context can survive even when people move between different organizational boundaries.

Are shared Capsules read-only for the recipients?

By default, when a Context Pack is shared with an external party or another project, it is treated as a read-only reference. The recipients can see the decisions and the linked memories, and they can enforce those decisions in their local Hopsule for VS Code environment, but they cannot mutate the original Capsule. If a recipient wants to build upon your decisions, they can "fork" the context into a new Capsule within their own organization. This maintains a clear line of authority while allowing for the collaborative evolution of standards across different teams.

Can I attach a Capsule to any AI tool?

Yes, through the Hopsule MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, you can connect your Context Packs to any compatible AI agent or tool, such as Cursor or Claude. This makes your AI tools "context-aware" automatically, as they gain read-only access to the decisions and memories stored within the Capsule. By attaching a Capsule to an AI session, you ensure that the AI's suggestions are aligned with your team's established standards. This prevents the common issue of AI agents suggesting code that contradicts your organization's architectural commitments.

Important: Hopsule MCP provides read-only access to your decisions. AI agents can read and understand your context, but they can never mutate or create new Accepted decisions autonomously.

Hopper (The AI Assistant)

Is Hopper mandatory to use Hopsule?

No, Hopper is an advisory assistant designed to enhance your experience, but the core functionality of Hopsule—decision management, memory preservation, and IDE enforcement—works perfectly without it. You can manually manage the lifecycle of your decisions and memories through the Hopsule Dashboard or the Hopsule CLI. However, Hopper significantly reduces the manual effort required to draft decisions from natural language and helps in identifying potential conflicts between new proposals and existing commitments in your Knowledge Graph.

Can I opt out of AI features entirely?

Yes, organizations with strict requirements can disable Hopper and all AI-related suggestions through the organization settings in the Hopsule Dashboard. When disabled, no data is processed by our advisory AI models, and all decision-making and conflict detection must be performed manually by your team. We respect the diverse security and compliance needs of engineering teams, and we ensure that Hopsule remains a powerful governance tool even in "manual-only" mode. Your decisions and memories remain fully encrypted and accessible via the API, CLI, and IDE extension regardless of your AI settings.

Does Hopper learn from my data to train global models?

No. Hopper uses your team's existing decisions and memories as context through a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) process, but this data is never used to train or improve our global AI models. Your organization's context remains isolated and private to your account. The "learning" that Hopper does is strictly limited to the session context to provide better advice for your specific project. We believe that your organizational judgment is your proprietary intellectual property and must be protected as such.

Can Hopper make or accept decisions on its own?

Never. A fundamental principle of Hopsule is that "humans decide, AI assists." Hopper is strictly advisory and does not have the authority to move a decision to the Accepted state. It can help you draft a decision, suggest improvements to the clarity of a memory, or warn you of a conflict, but the final act of acceptance requires a human signature. This ensures that every enforceable constraint in your organization is the result of intentional human judgment, not an automated process.

Security and Data Privacy

Is my data encrypted?

Yes, security is a baseline guarantee at Hopsule, not a premium feature. We employ end-to-end encryption for all plans, including the Free tier. Data in transit is protected using TLS 1.3, and all data at rest is encrypted using AES-256. For our Enterprise customers, we offer advanced options for data sovereignty and the ability to manage your own encryption keys. Our commitment to security ensures that your most sensitive architectural decisions and historical reasoning are protected against unauthorized access at all times.

Where is my data stored?

For our standard Cloud and Pro plans, data is stored in secure, SOC 2-compliant data centers with multi-region redundancy to ensure high availability. For organizations that require full data sovereignty, Hopsule Enterprise (Self-Hosted) allows you to deploy the entire Hopsule environment within your own infrastructure. In a self-hosted deployment, your decisions, memories, and context never leave your controlled environment. This is the preferred option for government, financial, and highly regulated industries that must maintain absolute control over their data residency.

Can I see who accessed or changed a decision?

Yes, Hopsule maintains a comprehensive audit trail for every entity in the system. Through the Hopsule Dashboard, administrators can view a detailed activity feed that records who created, modified, or changed the status of any decision or Context Pack. This audit trail is immutable and provides the transparency necessary for compliance and internal governance. You can see exactly when a decision was moved from Pending to Accepted and which team member authorized that transition.

Is the Hopsule for VS Code extension safe to use with private code?

Yes, the Hopsule for VS Code extension is designed with a "privacy-first" architecture. All processing of your source code to detect contradictions with Accepted decisions happens locally on your machine. No source code is ever sent to Hopsule servers. The extension only downloads the relevant decisions and constraints from your Context Packs to perform the local analysis. This ensures that your intellectual property remains entirely within your local environment while still benefiting from real-time decision enforcement.

Enterprise and Self-Hosting

What is included in the Hopsule Enterprise plan?

The Enterprise plan is designed for large-scale organizations that require advanced governance, security, and support. It includes everything in the Pro plan, plus multi-organization management, custom role-based access control (RBAC), audit logs for compliance reporting, and priority support with dedicated account management. Enterprise customers also get access to the Hopsule API with higher rate limits and the option for self-hosting. This tier is built to support the complex needs of VPs of Engineering and CTOs who are managing hundreds or thousands of developers across multiple business units.

Do you offer an on-premise or self-hosted option?

Yes, Hopsule Enterprise (Self-Hosted) is available for organizations that require full infrastructure control. This option allows you to run Hopsule on your own servers or private cloud, ensuring that your decision data never crosses your network boundary. The self-hosted version includes all the features of the Hopsule Dashboard, Hopper, and the Hopsule API. While the customer is responsible for managing backups and security updates for their own instance, our team provides specialized support to ensure a smooth deployment and maintenance experience.

What kind of Service Level Agreement (SLA) do you offer?

For our Cloud-hosted Enterprise customers, we offer a standard 99.9% uptime SLA, backed by service credits. We understand that Hopsule becomes a critical part of your development infrastructure, and we are committed to maintaining the highest levels of reliability. For Hopsule Enterprise (Self-Hosted), the standard uptime SLA does not apply as the infrastructure is managed by the customer, but we provide a Support Level Agreement that guarantees response times for technical assistance and troubleshooting. Detailed SLA terms are provided during the enterprise contracting process.

Important: Self-hosted deployments require a minimum commitment and are subject to a different pricing structure than our standard Cloud plans.

Pricing and Subscriptions

Is there a free tier for teams?

Hopsule offers a Free tier that is primarily intended for solo developers and very small experimental projects. For teams that require collaboration, shared Context Packs, and advanced enforcement features, we offer the Pro and Enterprise plans. The Pro plan is designed for growing engineering teams that need to synchronize decisions across multiple repositories and team members. We provide a transparent, per-seat pricing model that allows you to scale your Hopsule usage as your organization grows.

What happens if I exceed my plan's limits?

If you reach the limit of active Context Packs or decisions for your current plan, you will still be able to access and enforce your existing data, but you will be unable to create new entries until you either deprecate old ones or upgrade your plan. We will notify you via the Hopsule Dashboard and email when you are approaching your limits. Our goal is to ensure that your workflow is never interrupted, so we provide a grace period and clear paths for upgrading your subscription mid-cycle.

Can I switch plans or cancel at any time?

Yes, you can upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time through the billing section of the Hopsule Dashboard. If you upgrade, the new features and limits will be available immediately, and your bill will be prorated for the remainder of the cycle. If you choose to cancel your subscription, your account will remain active until the end of the current billing period, after which it will revert to the Free tier. We ensure that you always have access to export your data, even if you decide to move away from our paid services.

Integrations and API

Does Hopsule work with my existing project management tools?

Hopsule is designed to complement, not replace, your existing workflow. While we are not a project management tool, we offer integrations that allow you to link Decisions to specific tasks or issues in external systems. Through the Hopsule API and webhooks, you can trigger notifications in your communication channels when a decision is accepted or deprecated. This ensures that your team stays informed of governance changes without having to constantly check the Hopsule Dashboard.

Can I build custom integrations with the Hopsule API?

Yes, the Hopsule API is a fully featured RESTful interface that provides programmatic access to your decisions, memories, and Context Packs. You can use the API to build custom internal dashboards, automate the creation of draft decisions from external triggers, or integrate Hopsule with your CI/CD pipelines. The API is rate-limited based on your plan tier, and full documentation for all endpoints is available in our developer portal. We encourage teams to extend Hopsule to fit their unique organizational needs.

How does the Hopsule CLI fit into a developer's workflow?

The Hopsule CLI is designed for developers who prefer to stay in the terminal. It allows you to create, list, and manage the lifecycle of decisions without opening a browser. The CLI also features an interactive TUI (Text User Interface) with Knowledge Graph visualizations in ASCII art, providing a quick way to check the status of a project's context. Because it can be authenticated via tokens, the Hopsule CLI is also perfect for use in automated scripts and deployment pipelines where you might want to verify that all decisions are in an Accepted state before proceeding.

Support and Community

How do I get help if I encounter an issue?

We provide multiple channels for support depending on your plan. All users can access our comprehensive documentation and community forums. Pro and Enterprise users have access to direct email support with guaranteed response times. For Enterprise customers, we also offer dedicated Slack or Teams channels for real-time collaboration with our engineering team. If you encounter a technical bug or have a question about implementing Hopsule in your organization, our team is ready to assist you.

What are your support hours?

Our standard support hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM (UTC). For Enterprise customers with a premium support agreement, we provide 24/7 coverage for critical, "Service Down" incidents. We strive to respond to all non-critical inquiries within one business day. You can always check our public status page for real-time information on the health of the Hopsule Dashboard and Hopsule API.

Is there a community for Hopsule users?

Yes, we maintain an active community of engineering leaders and developers who are passionate about decision governance and organizational memory. You can join our community to share best practices for creating Context Packs, discuss the philosophy of "enforcement as remembrance," and get tips on how to maximize the value of Hopper. We frequently host webinars and virtual meetups to showcase how different organizations are using Hopsule to solve their context-sharing challenges.

Tip: Check our "Engineering Journal" on the Hopsule Dashboard for deep dives into how we use Hopsule to build Hopsule.