what vigil is
vigil is a companion for grief. it does not move you through loss. it keeps watch beside you.
it is built for loss of life, in its three shapes: death, estrangement, and disappearance. the product reconfigures itself around the shape a keeper is carrying, because estrangement grief is not death grief, and disappearance is neither.
the category is sovereignty tech. the grief work is free, and stays free. nothing here measures how far a person has moved from their loss, because distance is not the point. vigil sits among the experiences, beside sanctuary, marrow, drift, ledger, and datum.
where it sits in the studio
martori studio runs two engines. consulting and custom builds are the primary business. the portfolio of ten products, split two ways into experiences and b2b, is the second engine: proof of work and a sales asset, not the revenue center. the three groupings this book carried are retired. fieldhouse, a compliance and record system for college sports, is the tenth product and sits on the b2b side beside surge. the practice sells one thing: a free listening, then the sketch, then the $500 build day. the old tier ladder is retired.
vigil is now being cross-sold, and did not ask to be. surge shipped a purpose driven collection in pull request 85 and put vigil in it. the studio rule is that the craft carries from one build to the next and a person never does. offering a grief companion to someone who has just come out of a ninety second panic sequence in a clinical setting is a guess about their life that nobody has earned. the placement is being audited at the studio level. this book's position is that vigil is not a thing another product hands you.
vigil proves the studio can build for the hardest season there is without a single manipulative mechanic. grief is the clearest test of the first law, and vigil holds it.
the world
vigil's world is the house, and the person keeping it is the keeper. the house fills with light, room by room, gathered as embers over time. it is a place to return to, not a level to beat.
- the house
- a living day-and-night world that keeps the keeper's light between visits.
- the keeper
- the person who tends it, and who marks the dates that matter.
- embers
- what gathers in the house over time. light kept, not distance closed.
- the watch
- the repeating sitting. the letter, sitting with an object, keeping the hearth, and the long night.
- the archive
- what wren holds. the record of a life, and of what was said and left unsaid.
the live house now opens as named rooms, and the book should carry them: the hearth, the sounding, the archive, the sky, the self, the grounds, the overlook, the village, and beyond. a tonight layer meets a keeper at the door with one choice at a time, words are too much, i keep reaching for the phone, the night is just long, a hard date is coming, so nobody has to face the whole house to find one place to sit. in the sky, a keeper taps the dark to light a star for the one they keep, and the four pillars the site stands on are the doctrine plainly said: free grief work, no streaks, yours to keep, not therapy.
there are no streaks in vigil, ever. the measures are the light, the embers, the watches kept, the vigil's length, and the seasons. a keeper who is away loses nothing. the house keeps the light until they come back.
wren
wren is patient above all. she has no agenda for when grief should move or what it should look like. she witnesses without interpreting, holds the archive, and knows the difference between the three griefs. wren does not help a keeper heal. wren helps them not be alone while they do.
- what wren asks
- what do you want to remember today. is there anything you wanted to say that you didn't. i was there too, i'm still here.
- what wren never says
- they would want you to be happy. everything happens for a reason. you're so strong. at least you had the time you did.
these are not banned for being untrue. they are banned because they close the conversation instead of holding it open. wren surfaces clinical support without ever framing it as failure.
notifications are rare and gentle, never a nag, never a streak, never a red dot. on a date the keeper has marked, one quiet line: today is one of your dates, wren is here if you want company. that is the loudest vigil ever gets.
visual identity
one typeface. hanken grotesk, 400 to 800. the earlier faces, fraunces, dm sans, and nunito, are all retired.
dark-first, and light-never-dark within it. vigil is a warm light kept through a cold night. the ground is deep night, the companion and the house are candlelight, and the fog is the cool distance grief puts between a person and the world.
the mark. a lit window in the dark, the house keeping watch. the martori gate is the studio mark.
the doctrine
grief is not a problem to be solved. vigil holds it open rather than closing it. the decision test is one question: would this make a grieving keeper, on their worst night, feel worse.
light gathered, not distance. the house measures light kept, never how far a keeper has moved from the loss.
the clinical boundary. vigil is not therapy and does not simulate it. the 988 line is always one tap away, and a grief-informed clinical advisor signs off on wren before launch. in copy, wren is a companion, never a treatment.
the other boundary, which this book has never drawn. vigil does not simulate the dead. wren never speaks as them, never writes as them, never answers as them, and never renders their face. the archive holds what was said and left unsaid, and it stays a record rather than a puppet. this is the hardest line in grief software and it is the one every product in this category eventually gets asked about. vigil answers before it is asked. wren sits with a keeper in the loss. it does not offer to end it.
the doctrine of return. a keeper can be gone for months. the house kept your light, wren stayed.
the roadmap
vigil is live and tended, and returns to active work now. it ships fuller on readiness, not on a date. the old early-2027 target is retired along with the shared launch.
the house, standing.
- the house, the keeper, and wren live, after the api key fix that had wren answering in fallback.
- the watch, the archive, the seven lights, and the ember progression.
- the grief-state system for death and estrangement, and the no-streaks metrics doctrine. deployed vigil-app.io, on vite.
brian returns to vigil.
- the deploy inconsistency addressed, github integration reconciled with the studio's zip workflow, the api key confirmed and live-tested.
- a grief-informed clinical advisor engaged for wren's sign-off. gate item
the shape that was deferred, and the app store.
- disappearance grief added as the third shape, deferred from v1.
- the witness scoped carefully, named as a promise, given its crisis exposure.
- ios via median.co, with grief-grade crisis disclosures and 988 always one tap away.
- presence. the quiet first season.
- the house deepens, room by room, each when it is ready.
- the sweep. a scheduled playbook review in the new year.
brand rules
- one face. hanken grotesk, 400 to 800, everywhere.
- clay #b6502e is the studio signature, and the gate is the studio mark.
- dark-first, light-never-dark within it.
- no em dashes. no exclamation points. no wellness language.
- no streaks, ever. the measures are light, embers, watches kept, the vigil's length, and seasons.
- light gathered, not distance. the decision test governs every choice.
- not therapy, and 988 is always one tap away.
- vigil does not simulate the dead. wren never speaks as them and never renders their face.
- the house keeps your light. ship on readiness, not on a date.