Keystroke Telemetry and Cognitive Flow Mirroring
The science behind non-verbal terminal telemetry: how keystroke bursts, backspace frequency, and git diffs inform an alter-ego posture.
How does an avatar know what you are feeling without asking intrusive questions or scanning your webcam? The answer lies in the cadence of your fingers on mechanical keys.
Every programmer exhibits distinct typing signatures:
- Flow State: Continuous rhythmic bursts of 90-130 WPM with low backspace ratios and steady carriage returns.
- Cognitive Friction: Extended pauses (15-45 seconds) followed by rapid deletions of 20-50 characters.
- Fatigue: Irregular keystroke intervals, increased typo frequency, and long idle gaps.
interface KeystrokeTelemetry {
wpm: number;
burstVariance: number;
backspaceRatio: number;
idleDurationMs: number;
}
Privacy-Preserving Telemetry
Kanna’s telemetry engine never logs keycodes or character values. It only calculates temporal intervals (delta_t) between hardware interrupts. The exact code you write remains completely opaque to the alter-ego runtime; only the biological cadence is observed.
When high cognitive friction is detected, Kanna softens her rim lighting and gently re-indexes to the calm Void Dual-Rim chamber, helping anchor the developer’s nervous system.