The System (Gaia Awakening) https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28874/gaia-awakening
I am in the process of writing a story, published on royalroad.com. As I develop the story, one of the core plot devices is the existence of a "System" which is used by "Gaia" to communicate with, and interact with, humans. As I write the story, I'm bootstrapping "The System" and using the development (programming) as a plot device. I figured it adds a certain authenticity to the story that I am actually writing the code that is discussed in the story, and to make it available for others to down and run.
The basic concept is to start out keeping things as "clean" and system agnostic as possible, so I have tried to stick to "pure" C++ with no system dependicies. (And that didnt last long. I had to abandon Visual Studio Code and C++ in favour of Visual Studio Community Edition and C# and use some libraries and extensions that just make sense. The problem was mostly trying to remain OS agnostic, which is really difficult, and still have the functionality I wanted.)
As I go, I will publish "releases" which will correspond to chapters in the story where the progress made in the release is discussed at that stage of the story.
Starting out, my screen display is as a console app and I use simple standard out to print text, with the added sophistication of the ascii borders to start hinting at "boxes". ("Blue Boxes" are a recurring trope in this genre and I will work towards that.)
As I progress, I will solicit contributors to help to debug, extend and improve the software. When people do, I will select individuals who do contribute and include their names (usernames) in the story, the extent of contribution dependent on the size or importance of the contribution.
Well, it's not going too well with this OR the story. I've been way too busy with other things ...