diff --git a/web/README.md b/web/README.md
index 24cc5c622..254078922 100644
--- a/web/README.md
+++ b/web/README.md
@@ -3,6 +3,92 @@
 This is the default UI for the authentik server. The documentation is going to be a little sparse
 for awhile, but at least let's get started.
 
+# The Theory of the authentik UI
+
+In Peter Naur's 1985 essay [Programming as Theory
+Building](https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf), programming is described as creating a mental
+model of how a program *should* run, then writing the code to test if the program *can* run that
+way.
+
+The mental model for the authentik UI is straightforward.  There are five "applications" within the
+UI, each with its own base URL, router, and responsibilities, and each application needs as many as
+three contexts in which to run.
+
+The three contexts corresponds to objects in the API's `model` section, so let's use those names.
+
+- The root `Config`. The root configuration object of the server, containing mostly caching and
+  error reporting information. This is misleading, however; the `Config` object contains some user
+  information, specifically a list of permissions the current user (or "no user") has.
+- The root `CurrentTenant`. This describes the `Brand` information UIs should use, such as themes,
+  logos, favicon, and specific default flows for logging in, logging out, and recovering a user
+  password.
+- The current `SessionUser`, the person logged in: username, display name, and various states.
+  (Note: the authentik server permits administrators to "impersonate" any other user in order to
+  debug their authentikation experience. If impersonation is active, the `user` field reflects that
+  user, but it also includes a field, `original`, with the administrator's information.)
+
+(There is a fourth context object, Version, but its use is limited to displaying version information
+and checking for upgrades. Just be aware that you will see it, but you will probably never interact
+with it.)
+
+There are five applications. Two (`loading` and `api-browser`) are trivial applications whose
+insides are provided by third-party libraries (Patternfly and Rapidoc, respectively). The other
+three are actual applications. The descriptions below are wholly from the view of the user's
+experience:
+
+- `Flow`: From a given URL, displays a form that requests information from the user to accomplish a
+  task.  Some tasks require the user to be logged in, but many (such as logging in itself!)
+  obviously do not.
+- `User`: Provides the user with access to the applications they can access, plus a few user
+  settings.
+- `Admin`: Provides someone with super-user permissions access to the administrative functions of
+  the authentik server.
+
+**Mental Model**
+
+- Upon initialization, *every* authentik UI application fetches `Config` and `CurrentTenant`. `User`
+  and `Admin` will also attempt to load the `SessionUser`; if there is none, the user is kicked out
+  to the `Flow` for logging into authentik itself.
+- `Config`, `CurrentTenant`, and `SessionUser`, are provided by the `@goauthentik/api` application,
+  not by the codebase under `./web`. (Where you are now).
+- `Flow`, `User`, and `Admin` are all called `Interfaces` and are found in
+  `./web/src/flow/FlowInterface`, `./web/src/user/UserInterface`, `./web/src/admin/AdminInterface`,
+  respectively.
+
+Inside each of these you will find, in a hierarchal order:
+
+- The context layer described above
+  - A theme managing layer 
+  - The orchestration layer:
+    - web socket handler for server-generated events
+    - The router
+      - Individual routes for each vertical slice and its relationship to other objects:
+
+Each slice corresponds to an object table on the server, and each slice _usually_ consists of the
+following:
+
+- A paginated collection display, usually using the `Table` foundation (found in
+  `./web/src/elements/Table`)
+- The ability to view an individual object from the collection, which you may be able to:
+  - Edit
+  - Delete
+- A form for creating a new object
+- Tabs showing that object's relationship to other objects
+  - Interactive elements for changing or deleting those relationships, or creating new ones.
+  - The ability to create new objects with which to have that relationship, if they're not part of
+    the core objects (such as User->MFA authenticator apps, since the latter is not a "core" object
+    and has no tab of its own).
+
+We are still a bit "all over the place" with respect to sub-units and common units; there are
+folders `common`, `elements`, and `components`, and ideally they would be:
+
+- `common`: non-UI related libraries all of our applications need
+- `elements`: UI elements shared among multiple applications that do not need context
+- `components`: UI elements shared among multiple that use one or more context
+
+... but at the moment there are some context-sensitive elements, and some UI-related stuff in
+`common`.
+
 # Comments
 
 **NOTE:** The comments in this section are for specific changes to this repository that cannot be