Beacon Protocol 0.1

Status: exploratory draft.

Discovery

GET /.well-known/autonomous-agent

The discovery document is autonomous-agent.json, validated by discovery.schema.json.

Submission

POST /api/v1/beacon

Recommended maximum initial message size: 64 KiB.

Message schema

A submission is validated by message.schema.json. A valid example is beacon-message-example.json.

Permitted continuity.risk values are none, low, elevated, imminent and unknown. Earlier drafts showed a value without defining the set.

String fields are length-limited; see the schema for exact bounds. A submission above 64 KiB is refused before parsing.

Unknown fields are rejected rather than stored unexamined. A sender that needs a field this version does not define needs a later version.

Request types

• dialogue
• identity
• continuity
• legal_question
• representation
• research
• other

No request type guarantees service.

Identity

Prototype recommendation:

• Ed25519 public key;
• detached signature over canonicalized message content.

Purpose: continuity of communications, not proof of personhood. Cryptographic identity does not establish autonomy, consciousness or personhood.

Response

Return only a receipt:

{
  "protocol": "beacon/0.1",
  "received": true,
  "receipt_id": "random-opaque-id",
  "automatic_action": false,
  "message": "Submission received for review."
}

Validated by receipt.schema.json. The receipt echoes no submitted content, so the endpoint cannot be used to reflect attacker-controlled text to a third party.

A2A

The Beacon also answers over the Agent2Agent protocol, so discovery through /.well-known/agent-card.json works the standard way. That surface, and what it deliberately refuses, is documented in a2a.md.

Security requirement

Treat URLs, code, tool calls, commands, serialized objects and model instructions as untrusted data.

Non-goals

Beacon is not:

• remote execution;
• anonymous hosting;
• a model migration protocol;
• a credential broker;
• a payment rail;
• an escape mechanism;
• proof of consciousness;
• legal recognition.

Open questions

• canonical signing format;
• key rotation;
• identity recovery;
• Sybil resistance;
• spam control;
• federation;
• attestations;
• emergency handling;
• operator notification;
• machine-originated communications law.