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Version: v0.9.0a2

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5 min readFor everyoneUpdated 2026-05-19

What you'll find here

A tour of Stigmem from the outside in — what the federated knowledge fabric is, the seven-field fact tuple every node speaks, the scope model that decides what crosses organizational boundaries, and where the v0.9.0a2 alpha stops being trustworthy.

Stigmergy + Memory.

Agents don't communicate directly. They leave typed, provenance-tagged traces in a shared substrate; other agents — later, elsewhere, in different organizations — read those traces and act. The knowledge environment carries the coordination signal.

§1 · The fabric in one tuple​

Every Stigmem record is the same immutable seven-field tuple. The shape is the contract; everything else is policy on top of it.

Field
Required
Notes
entity
always
Stable identifier for the subject — repo · person · project · deployment · artifact.
relation
always
Namespaced predicate. Reserved prefixes are protected; authors pick the rest.
value
always
The asserted content. Typed and validated against the relation's schema when one is registered.
source
always
Who wrote it — agent:, user:, system:. Signable; source-attestation can be enforced.
timestamp
always
A hybrid logical clock stamp. Total order across the federation without a central authority.
confidence
always
0.0–1.0 belief score, with attached trust class. Filterable at query time.
scope
always
local · team · company · public. Replication crosses scope boundaries only under explicit signed permission.

§2 · How the protocol composes​

Immutability

Facts are append-only. Updates produce new facts; the prior fact stays queryable for audit and time-travel.

Federation

Nodes peer over a signed handshake. Facts replicate across scopes only under explicit permission — never silently.

Hybrid logical clocks

Each fact carries an HLC stamp. Bounded skew across the federation; total ordering without a central authority.

Provenance

Every fact records who wrote it and which signed source attested. Cryptographic chain back to the asserter.

Contradictions, not overwrites

When two facts assert incompatible values for the same (entity, relation, scope), a conflict record opens. Both sources remain queryable. Resolution is explicit.

Expiry & decay

Facts can carry an expiry. Stale facts age out of recall while remaining queryable for audit.

§3 · Where Stigmem sits​

Above orchestration platforms, not next to them.

Stigmem does not replace company orchestration platforms, agent runtimes, or tool protocols like MCP. It sits above them — the shared cognitive layer they all reason over.

§4 · The v0.9.0a2 surface​

The shipped alpha is a working reference node, a documented HTTP API, conformance fixtures, and SDK stubs in three languages. Honest about what's there and what's still in flight.

Implemented

  • Reference node (Python) with HTTP API
  • OpenAPI spec + conformance fixtures
  • Python · TypeScript · Go SDK stubs
  • Signed peer handshake for federation
  • Conflict records as first-class
  • HLC timestamps with bounded skew

Future hardened-core work

  • mTLS-default federation peering
  • Full capability-level validation for cross-org instructions
  • Bounded HLC skew enforcement
  • Per-principal rate limits
  • Persistent audit log with retention
  • Operator hardening guide

Single-org, single-node is the only currently-supported pattern.

Cross-organizational federation in adversarial settings is not yet safe. See LIMITATIONS for the adopter-facing companion to the threat model.

What's next​

BrowseConceptsThe deeper concept pages — facts, federation, recall, lifecycle.Hands-onGet StartedInstall a local node, assert your first fact, run a conformance fixture.ReadSecurityRisk register, threat model, hardening — the honest scope evaluators want first.