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Governance — Protocol Commons

Scope: Protocol-Commons (primary), Agent-Cards (identity bindings)
Status: v1.0.0 — Stable-Lock

This governance is NORMATIVE, ENFORCEABLE, AND PERMANENT.
Control is custodial today and designed to decentralize as adoption grows.

1. Mandate of Commons Governance

Protocol-Commons governs semantic truth:

  • Canonical verbs
  • Request/receipt schemas
  • TXT semantics for schema binding
  • Normative version changes
  • Immutable historical provenance

It MUST protect:

  • Machine-readable meaning
  • Interoperability continuity
  • Permanent public access

Commons is the constitution of agent intent.
Everything else derives authority from it — not the other way around.

2. Strict Scope Limits — NORMATIVE

Commons MAY govern:

  • Semantic contracts (schema language, grammar, behavior)
  • Required validation mode (strict, draft 2020-12)
  • TXT keys that bind semantic truth (cl.schema.*)

Commons MUST NOT govern:

  • Pricing or economics
  • Runtime topology
  • Execution performance or SLAs
  • Vendor-specific commercial logic

Commercial and Runtime layers MUST remain subordinate:

Execution is business.
Semantics are public goods.

Commercial schemas may reference Commons semantics — they may not alter them.

  • SPEC.md is the single source of normative truth.
  • Where documents disagree, SPEC.md SHALL prevail without exception.

3. Stewardship — Bootstrap to Neutrality

Founding Steward: commandlayer.eth

Responsible for:

  • Canonical schema publishing
  • Signed manifest + checksum updates
  • Security revocations + provenance logs
  • Transparency for all normative decisions

Decentralization Phases

Phase Governance Form Trigger
1 — Bootstrap Single-operator Safe Initial production adoption
2 — Multi-Maintainer ≥3 independent vendors in Safe Cross-vendor reliance
3 — Standards Committee Public RFC review + voting Global ecosystem dependence
4 — Neutral Standards Body Community-elected Entrenched industry standard

Vendor diversity REQUIRED — no single affiliation may dominate.

A non-profit legal wrapper SHALL be established before Phase 3.

4. Immutable Semantic Guarantees (Anti-Rug)

Once published:

  • $id, CID, and version MUST NEVER change
  • Historical schemas MUST remain resolvable
  • Governance history MUST NOT be rewritten

Commercial schemas inherit similar guarantees:

Commercial schemas are permanently free —
economics only occur at runtime, never in the semantic layer.

Attempts to mutate semantics in place MUST be treated as UNTRUSTED.

5. TXT Key Governance — NORMATIVE

TXT semantics are partitioned:

Prefix Authority Meaning Mutation Allowed?
cl.schema.* Commons Semantic bindings NEVER
cl.agentcard Agent-Cards Identity binding NEVER (per version)
cl.runtime.* Runtime Operational endpoints Yes, logged

Resolvers MUST:

  • Reject TXT ↔ CID mismatches
  • Treat unauthorized TXT keys as UNTRUSTED
  • Enforce immutability of all versioned schema keys

Schema TXT is sacred.
Runtime TXT is operational.

6. ENS Custody — NORMATIVE

Canonical ENS:

  • commandlayer.eth
  • {verb}agent.eth identities

Custody SHALL transition to a 3-of-5 Safe before Phase 2:

  • Hardware-backed keys
  • Signer identities publicly logged
  • Rotation MUST be recorded in SECURITY_PROVENANCE.md

No single key may modify canonical semantics.

7. Change Classification

All normative proposals MUST originate from a public GitHub Issue linked to a PR.
Silent or undocumented changes are STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.

Change Class Version Rule Required Log
Normative (behavior change) 1 → 2 RESOLUTION.md
Compat-affecting 1.0 → 1.1 RESOLUTION.md
Non-behavioral 1.0.0 → 1.0.1 Commit history

Every semantic release MUST publish new CIDs + checksums.

8. Security Governance

  • Responsible disclosure contact MUST be active
  • No silent patches or overwritten history
  • Emergency revocation allowed to protect downstream users

Transparency ALWAYS wins.

9. Enforcement of Compatibility Claims

Products MAY claim:

  • Commons-Compatible
  • Agent-Cards-Compatible

ONLY if:

  • $id + CID validation passes
  • Ajv strict mode enforced
  • Traceable receipt conformance
  • Adherence to this Governance

False claims REQUIRE public enforcement action.

Last updated: v1.0.0 — Stable-Lock
Signed: commandlayer.eth
Founding Steward — CommandLayer Semantic Standards