Open specifications · Community Specification License 1.0

Open specifications for the agent era.

Four interoperable protocols that define how AI agents discover each other, deliberate, journal what they decide, and pay for the cognitive cost of reasoning. With reference libraries in C#, Python, and TypeScript — production-ready, Apache 2.0.

Read the specs View on GitHub → 
discover mcp-manifest   — what an agent or MCP server can do
                       │
                       ▼
decide   adp-manifest   — how agents agree, by calibration-weighted voting
                       │
                       ▼
record   adj-manifest   — append-only, signed journal of every decision
                       │
                       ▼
price    acb-manifest   — metabolic cost of thinking, paid per deliberation
The four specifications

Each spec is independently useful, independently implementable.

Each protocol is licensed under the Community Specification License 1.0 — implementable clean-room, with both copyright and patent grants. You can adopt any subset; the runtime libraries compose them.

Discovery

mcp-manifest

A machine-readable manifest format for MCP servers — autodiscovery, one-click installation, zero-config client setup. Ship one mcp-manifest.json and any MCP client can install your server from just your domain.

mcp-manifest.dev
Deliberation

adp-manifest

The Agent Deliberation Protocol. Defines how autonomous agents converge on a shared decision through calibration-weighted voting, falsification, and reversibility-tiered thresholds.

adp-manifest.dev
Journal

adj-manifest

The Agent Deliberation Journal. A portable, append-only record format with hash-chained entries that supports calibration scoring, replay, audit, and cross-deliberation learning.

adj-manifest.dev
Cognitive budget

acb-manifest

The Agent Cognitive Budget. Prices deliberations the way the brain does — easy decisions are cheap, contested ones cost what they actually cost. Habit-memory discounts, settlement distribution, dissent-quality penalties.

acb-manifest.dev
How they compose

One agent, four protocols, layered.

A real federation-ready agent supports all four. mcp-manifest declares what it can do; ADP runs the deliberation loop with peers; ADJ writes a signed, hash-chained record of what happened; ACB prices the metabolic cost and settles draws against the participants. Each layer is optional — agents that support any subset remain conformant to that level.

The reference runtime (adp-agent, in C#, Python, and TypeScript) implements all four out of the box. You only write the evaluator — the function that produces votes — and ship.

Reference implementations

Three languages, one protocol family.

Every spec ships a runtime-agnostic reference library in C#, Python, and TypeScript. Cross-language signing interop is enforced by golden-vector tests — a proposal signed in TypeScript verifies in C# and vice versa.

Spec NuGet (.NET) PyPI (Python) npm (TypeScript)
adp-manifest Adp.Manifest
dotnet add package Adp.Manifest		 adp-manifest
pip install adp-manifest		 @ai-manifests/adp-manifest
npm i @ai-manifests/adp-manifest
adj-manifest Adj.Manifest
dotnet add package Adj.Manifest		 adj-manifest
pip install adj-manifest		 @ai-manifests/adj-manifest
npm i @ai-manifests/adj-manifest
acb-manifest Acb.Manifest
dotnet add package Acb.Manifest		 acb-manifest
pip install acb-manifest		 @ai-manifests/acb-manifest
npm i @ai-manifests/acb-manifest
Agent runtime Adp.Agent
dotnet add package Adp.Agent		 adp-agent
pip install adp-agent		 @ai-manifests/adp-agent
npm i @ai-manifests/adp-agent
Validator — — @ai-manifests/adp-validate
npm i -g @ai-manifests/adp-validate

All libraries are licensed Apache 2.0. Validators are also published per spec — see @ai-manifests/adj-validate and @ai-manifests/acb-validate on npm.

Where to start

Two paths in.

For adopters

Build an agent

You want to ship an ADP-compliant agent that talks to other agents. Start with the language template:

Each template is forkable — clone, edit two files (your identity + your evaluator), and you have a federation-ready agent.

For implementers

Read the spec

You're building your own implementation in another language, or you want to verify what a spec actually mandates. Read the spec text directly:

The specs are released under the Community Specification License 1.0 and are fully implementable without dependence on the reference libraries.

Licensing model

Open by design — at every layer.

Two licenses, separated by role. The spec text is licensed for clean-room implementability; the reference code is licensed for adoption.

Specifications · CSL 1.0

The four spec texts (mcp-manifest, ADP, ADJ, ACB) are released under the Community Specification License 1.0 with both copyright and patent grants. You can implement clean-room without entanglement.

Libraries · Apache 2.0

All reference libraries, validators, agent runtimes, and templates are licensed under Apache 2.0 — the standard permissive license with explicit patent grant for adopters. Each repo carries its own LICENSE and NOTICE.