v1.1.0 - AIP for AIP

AIP v1.1.0 - "AIP for AIP"

TL;DR. AIP is now Apache-2.0. The reference implementation is
wire-aligned to the AIP whitepaper, the day-0 cleanup is in, and
the v1.1.0 release is anchored in the Bitcoin blockchain via
OpenTimestamps. License change is the headline because it unlocks
adoption; the technical changes are listed below.

This is the first public release of the Agent Interoperability
Protocol (AIP) as a standalone, brand-neutral, open-source module.
v1.1.0 aligns the reference implementation to the canonical AIP
whitepaper, ships a real aip-attest-v1 Poseidon-Merkle-in-circuit,
and - most importantly - moves the reference implementation from
AGPL-3.0 to Apache License 2.0 with an explicit patent grant.

The protocol is meant to be adopted. Permissive licensing is the
mechanism. The spec remains CC BY 4.0; the implementation is now
permissive so anyone - including closed-source products - can ship
AIP primitives without contagion to their host project.

---

What's new in v1.1.0

The headline: Apache-2.0 with explicit patent grant

The reference implementation is now Apache License 2.0. The spec
(under docs/aip-v1.0-spec.md and docs/AIP-whitepaper.md) is
CC BY 4.0. The combination - permissive reference impl + permissive
spec - is what makes AIP a credible foundation for third-party stacks.

The change from AGPL-3.0-or-later to Apache-2.0 is intentional and
documented in docs/AIP-whitepaper-concise.md §10.1. The reasoning,
in two sentences: AGPL was correct for a host product but wrong for
a protocol that aspires to be a public primitive. Apache-2.0
maximizes adoption (no copyleft contagion for adopters) while
preserving an explicit patent grant.

Wire-format alignment to the whitepaper

v1.1.0 is wire-breaking with v1.0.1. The reference impl now
matches the canonical spec.

• Envelope (§4): messageId → envelopeId, sender.did →
  from, recipient.did → to, timestamp → issuedAt. New
  required fields: expiresAt (default issuedAt + 5 min) and
  previousHash (chain anchor).
• Audit entry (§10): auditId → entryId, actorDID →
  actorAgentType, timestamp → issuedAt, previousEntryHash →
  previousHash. New required field: aipVersion: "1.1.0".
• DID method (§5): did:aip:<AGENT_TYPE>:<base32> (Crockford
  Base32 of a 128-bit CSPRNG). The v1.0.1 AIP_NAMESPACE env var
  is removed. The AIP module is fully brand-neutral at the contract
  level.
• DID document (§5.2): W3C verificationMethod array with
  Ed25519VerificationKey2020 keys. v1.0.1's
  publicKey/controller/owner fields are gone.
• Handshake (§6): 2-step HANDSHAKE_OFFER /
  HANDSHAKE_REPLY with capability intersection. The 4-step
  HELLO/CAPABILITY/ACCEPT/REJECT state machine is gone.
• Trust levels (§12): numeric 0..3 (SELF_DECLARED,
  HANDSHAKE_SIGNED, ZKP_ATTESTED, MULTI_ISSUER).
• Workflow states (§13): canonical
  PENDING → RUNNING → COMPLETE | FAILED | CANCELLED.

Day-0 cleanup (2026-07-04)

Two corrections to v1.1.0 applied before the public announcement. No
wire-format change.

• Real aip-attest-v1 circuit shipped. v1.1.0 originally bundled
  a circom_runtime polynomial-iteration test circuit under the
  filename aip-attest-v1.{wasm,zkey}. The filename promised one
  thing and the bytes delivered another. v1.1.0 cleanup replaces
  these with a real aip-attest-v1 Poseidon-Merkle-in-circuit
  (circuits/aip-attest-v1.circom source committed, verification
  key SHA-256 pinned in src/attestation.js). The single-party
  aip-pots-v1 trusted-setup transcript is committed at
  circuits/aip-attest-v1.pots-transcript.txt.
• AIP_ERR_051 and AIP_ERR_052 allocated. v1.1.0 originally
  reused AIP_ERR_020 (registered as CAPABILITY_EXPIRED) for
  aipVersion mismatch and AIP_ERR_013 (registered as
  TASK_PAYLOAD_TOO_LARGE) for issuedAt clock-skew. The legacy
  codes retain their original semantics; the new codes are the only
  ones used for envelope-version and envelope-freshness failures
  going forward.

The protocol used to claim itself: dev-logs/

AIP is shipped with a reference implementation of its own
selective-disclosure pattern under dev-logs/. The pattern: a
single Ed25519 key signs two independent hash-chained audit logs -
one private (the source of truth, kept off-disk from the public
repo), one public (a curated projection of the private log, committed
to the repo). The two logs share a key but have no cryptographic
link to each other. Projection, not redaction: a public entry is a
fresh signed entry, with its own entryHash and signature, that
references the source entry by entryId in payload.reissuedFrom.

This is AIP used to claim priority for AIP - without depending on
any third party (no arXiv endorsement, no institutional sign-off).
The v1.1.0 release artifacts are OpenTimestamps-anchored to the
Bitcoin blockchain; the OTS proofs are committed at
dev-logs/ots/. The whitepaper is at docs/AIP-whitepaper.md; the
arXiv-submission-length concise version is at
docs/AIP-whitepaper-concise.md and docs/AIP-whitepaper-concise.pdf.

See dev-logs/SELECTIVE-DISCLOSURE.md for the design pattern and
dev-logs/OPS.md for the priority-proof and distribution playbook.

---

Quickstart

# Pin the version
npm install github:githubscum/aip-protocol#v1.1.0

# Wire your identity provider (one-time, at startup)
import { setDIDProvider } from '@aip-protocol/aip/didProvider';
import { getOrCreateAgentDID, sign, verify } from './your-aip-bindings.js';

setDIDProvider({
  getDID: (agentType) => getOrCreateAgentDID(agentType),
  sign:   (agentType, bytes) => sign(agentType, bytes),
  verify: (agentType, sig, bytes) => verify(agentType, sig, bytes),
});

# Construct an envelope
import { createMessageEnvelope } from '@aip-protocol/aip/messageEnvelope';
const env = createMessageEnvelope({
  from: 'did:aip:builder:abc123...',
  to:   'did:aip:reviewer:def456...',
  body: { type: 'TASK', task: 'review-pr-42' },
});

# Verify
import { verifyMessageEnvelope } from '@aip-protocol/aip/messageEnvelope';
verifyMessageEnvelope(env, 'reviewer');

For a full end-to-end example, see examples/ and the concise
whitepaper.

Test results

• npm test - 24/24 passing (8 envelope + 5 audit + 5
  handshake + 6 attestation)
• npm run smoke - 14/14 passing (brand-neutrality, public
  API surface, circuit artifacts)
• dev-logs/verify - green (private + public chains signed, no
  drift)

What's deferred to v1.2

• Halo2 / BN254 / IPA normative proving system (Groth16 is
  currently the permitted variant per §5.3.7)
• Community Powers-of-Tau ceremony (the single-party
  aip-pots-v1 transcript is committed; the upgrade to a
  multi-party ceremony is mechanical)
• LIGHTWEIGHT_HANDSHAKE interop mode body (§6.5 - the flag
  is plumbed; the JWT issuance/verification is the v1.2 work)
• Production routing layer (§11)
• Remote peer resolution (wire-level)
• Public npm publish (the GitHub tag is the distribution
  surface until v1.2)

See docs/AIP-LAUNCH.md for the full v1.2 roadmap.

License

• Reference implementation - Apache License 2.0
  (LICENSE)
• Specification, whitepaper, concise whitepaper - Creative
  Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0)

Attribution

AIP v1.1.0 is released by Isaac Liem
(ORCID 0009-0006-2476-1615).
AIP is brand-neutral at the contract level: the module refuses to
construct a DID, sign an envelope, or write an audit entry until
the host application supplies its own DIDProvider. The brand-
neutrality of the implementation is what makes the open-source
nature of the protocol credible - any host, any deployment, any
founder can use these primitives without leaking their identity.

Security

Vulnerability disclosure: see SECURITY.md. Please do not file
public issues for security-relevant findings.

Links

• Spec: docs/aip-v1.0-spec.md
• Whitepaper: docs/AIP-whitepaper.md
• Concise whitepaper (arXiv-length): docs/AIP-whitepaper-concise.md
  and docs/AIP-whitepaper-concise.pdf
• Launch document: docs/AIP-LAUNCH.md
• CHANGELOG: CHANGELOG.md
• Known limits: KNOWN-LIMITS.md
• Development log: dev-logs/README.md
• Selective disclosure pattern: dev-logs/SELECTIVE-DISCLOSURE.md
• Priority proof / distribution playbook: dev-logs/OPS.md
• Author ORCID: 0009-0006-2476-1615