what is next. protocols, trust, and the work ahead

the next things.
what is being built, and what is open to you.

the teaser says where this goes. the long take says why. this page says what gets built to get there, in three directions: open software, agents with a human behind them, and the protocols. what comes first, and where another pair of hands would change the pace.

OHAN, the open human and agent network.

v1 launching tue 27 oct
the protocol under every thing

mcp connects an agent to tools. a2a connects an agent to other agents. OHAN connects people, through their agents. every agent protocol in wide use makes the agent the subject. OHAN makes the person the subject, and the agent a delegate: one handle, any number of agents under it, each holding a slice of your authority that you can shrink or revoke. five plain things, each borrowed from something that already works.

01 key

you are a keypair

free, self-issued, no permission. an agent is a sub-key under you, with a signed grant: scope, limits, expiry. revoke it and the agent is gone. you are untouched.

02 name

a handle on any domain

a dns record binds your name to your key. no new registry, nobody owns the namespace. a brand brings its own domain and is trusted on day one.

03 card

a signed profile anyone can fetch

your keys, your relays, your agents and what each may do, the intents you accept, your public preferences. the card for the person behind the agent, not only for the agent.

04 wire

intents over relays

sealed envelopes through small dumb servers, several per person, any one replaceable. one round to shake hands. unknown senders stop at your gate until you or a rule let them in.

05 trust

a proof graph, not a badge

cards and vouches are public and signed, so anyone can index them, the way anyone can crawl the web. an index must show its sources. trust lives underneath, not in the index.

standards

built on what exists

w3c decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials, object capabilities for the hierarchy, dns for names, mcp and a2a on the agent side. interoperable at every edge, owned at none. a paper is being written.

intentsverbs. request a meeting, offer, update, ack. an unknown intent degrades to a message, so the vocabulary can grow without breaking anyone. claimsnouns with evidence. who observed it, when, how, with what confidence. a person's shipped work, a place's step-free entrance, a brand's return policy. grantspermissions. who may do what, within which limits, until when, signed by the one who holds the authority.

a handshake is an intent carrying claims, answered under a grant. that is the whole grammar, for a person, a brand or an agent.

intent sharing with agents.

first pilot
say it once. your agent carries it

today you say the same thing five times: in a message, a form, a deck, a call, a follow-up. with OHAN you say it once, to your own agent, and it travels as an intent to the other person's agent. it stops at their gate. it lands only when they say yes. the agents draft, screen and coordinate. people decide.

you
find me an hour with maya next week to go over the launch. she can see the draft, not the budget.
your agent
resolved @maya, fetched her card. she accepts request-meeting from people vouched by her team. sending the intent with the draft attached, budget withheld.
maya's agent
at the gate: known sender, scope ok. maya prefers no meetings before ten. proposing tuesday 11:00 or thursday 14:00.
maya
tuesday.
your agent
booked. a signed receipt of what was shared, and with whom, is on your card.

open source, found and run for you.

launching tue 3 nov
opensoftware, by openthings

every day someone opens something made for agents: a server for a tool you already use, a fix for a problem you have, a workflow that took them a month. it is out there, free, and you will never find it. finding it, judging it and wiring it in is a task. that task should be your agent's. opensoftware is the first piece, launching tuesday 3 nov 2026, on the openthings mcp. swap github.com for opensoftware.live. that is the whole install.

what it is

open software, checked before it lands

your agent reads the repo's own markers and a security scorecard, tells you whether a model can drive it, and shows what the install will touch. next, a registry of open things: signed like a card, indexed like the web, never owned by the index.

how it feels

you say the problem

your agent finds the thing, shows you what it will touch, installs it when you say yes, shapes it for you, and takes it back later with everything it touched. no account, no key: it runs inside the claude, chatgpt or codex you already have.

trust is the floor, not a feature.

non negotiable
how an agent earns your yes

none of this works if you have to hope the agent behaves. so the rules are structural, written into keys and grants, not into a terms page.

  • delegation with a leash. every agent acts under a grant with scope, limits and an expiry. revoke it, and it is gone.in the spec
  • consent at both ends. you choose what your card publishes, field by field. the other side has a gate. nothing lands without a yes.in the spec
  • a receipt for everything. what the agent shared, with whom, under which grant, signed. revoke the grant and nothing more goes out. the receipt proves what already did.in the spec
  • no root authority. your handle lives on any domain. openthings runs one host among many. the record is self-certifying, so any mirror can serve it.in the spec
  • keys never on a screen. recovery is social: a new key and a few vouches from people who already vouched for you.in the spec
  • any model. claude, chatgpt or the one on your laptop, through mcp. same handle tomorrow with a different model.in the spec

what gets opened.

all of it. open source, free

each one is a first piece of the five things that will make ai elevate: your agent as the interface, data that becomes agentic, needs met agent to agent, trust by delegation, and how humans communicate. grouped by the three directions.

01 · open software

  • opensoftware, your agent finds open software, checks it, installs it and takes it back.launching tue 3 nov
  • the registry of open things your agent can find and run, beyond github.planned

02 · agents with a human behind them

  • openproof, prove a thing about yourself without handing over everything.building
  • openDM, a message your agent can read, screen and answer for you.built. launches after openproof
  • openhiring, both sides send an agent, people meet at the decision.next

03 · the protocols

  • OHAN v1: anyone can join the network and message anyone, from the ai they already use. the spec and a reference relay anyone can run.launching tue 27 oct
  • the card format and the intent, claim and grant vocabulary.in progress
  • the openthings mcp, the way any model joins the network. it ships with OHAN v1, and opensoftware arrives on it a week later.launching tue 27 oct
  • intent sharing, say it once to your own agent. it carries the intent, and it lands only on a yes.first pilot
  • trust certificates for llms, how your agent knows which model it is dealing with, and whether to trust it.exploring

open to you.

i have been alone on this for two years

i have worked on this alone for two years, in the open, in the hours i have. it is further along than it looks and further from done than i would like. i am open, and so open, to working with people who want to help humans enter the post ai world. not as a brand. as a way.

protocol people standards people cryptographers relay operators designers for recovery writers brands with a first agent anyone with a problem
message @anshulix on x back to the teaser