Getting started

Download the app

Metroon is a native Mac app for Apple Silicon. Go to the download page and choose “Download for macOS.” That page tells you the exact version, file size, and SHA-256 checksum for the build you’re about to get, so you can verify what you downloaded before you ever open it.

The file arrives as a disk image, a .dmg. Double-click it to mount it, drag Metroon into your Applications folder, then eject the disk image the way you’d eject a USB drive. Once the app is copied over, you can throw away the .dmg file itself; it isn’t needed again.

What macOS shows the first time

Because the app came from outside the App Store, macOS treats the first launch with extra caution. That’s normal and expected, not a sign anything went wrong. When a release is signed and notarized by Apple, which the download page confirms for the exact build you have, opening it for the first time shows the standard confirmation macOS shows for any app downloaded from the internet: an alert naming the developer and asking whether you want to open it. Click Open and the app launches.

If your Mac shows a message saying it can’t verify the developer, or refuses to open the app outright, that’s not a dialog to click past. Go back to the download page and check the current release’s status and its SHA-256 checksum against the file you downloaded. If the checksum doesn’t match, don’t open it. If it matches and the release is confirmed notarized, open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, and look near the bottom of that page for a message about the blocked app; that’s the one path left for opening it, and it doesn’t weaken anything else about your Mac’s security settings.

First launch

The first time Metroon opens, it walks you through two setup steps before you can start a session.

The first is choosing how Citizens will run. You can connect one or more cloud providers by pasting in an API key from that provider’s own developer console, run models locally using your Mac’s own processing power, or mix both. Models and keys covers what a local model needs from your Mac, and the difference between an API key and a subscription login, which do not work the same way and are easy to confuse the first time.

The second is choosing your Citizens: the specific models, cloud or local, that will take part in your sessions. Add as many as you like, drop ones you don’t use, and change your mind anytime from Settings. A session works by comparing Citizens against each other, so pick more than one before you start.

Running your first session

Open a new session and ask a real question, something with a genuine tradeoff rather than a fact lookup. Metroon works best on decisions: what to prioritize, which of two approaches to take, whether a plan actually holds up. A question with only one correct answer gives the Citizens nothing to disagree about, and a session built for structured disagreement has little to do with it.

From there, a full deliberation runs through four phases automatically, in order:

• Broadcast. Every Citizen you selected answers your question independently, without seeing what the others say. This is the widest spread of opinion you’ll see in the session, and the only point where you see it unfiltered.
• Dialogue. Citizens read each other’s answers and raise conflicts where they actually disagree. You can watch this exchange happen in real time, one claim at a time.
• Synthesis. A Judge, a separate model whose only job is to read the whole exchange, writes a recommendation: what it concluded, why, which claims it’s citing, and what’s still genuinely uncertain.
• Debrief. You get the final word. Ask follow-up questions, push back on the recommendation, and decide what’s worth saving. Anything you keep can inform later sessions.

None of this needs extra configuration once your Citizens are set up. Ask your question, watch the four phases run, and read the result.

Where to go next

How it works explains the mechanism behind each phase in more depth, including what the five kinds of disagreement between Citizens actually mean and why a Judge exists at all. Models and keys covers the model catalog and what your Mac’s memory realistically supports. Your data explains where Metroon keeps what you build, how to back it up, and how to delete it.