Live Intake and Agent Messages

Live Intake And Agent Messages

This page explains PIC v0.4.4 communication features in practical terms.

PIC can read explicitly supplied sources and local agent messages. It treats them as candidate material. It does not treat external content, message volume, or agent confidence as proof.

Quick Decision Path

Use these commands when you need communication-related checks:

pic agent check --compact --text "Candidate packet: preserve residuals." --profile development
pic agent runbook --profile development
pic agent communication-guide --profile development
pic agent network-readiness --profile development
pic agent relay-readiness --profile development

Use uv run before the command when running from a source checkout.

Explicit-Source Live Intake

In v0.4.4, live intake is enabled by default only when a source is explicitly supplied.

pic ecology ingest-general --source https://example.org --kind web-page
pic ecology ingest-general --source https://example.org/feed.xml --kind rss

For local-only dry runs:

pic ecology ingest-general --source https://example.org --kind web-page --no-allow-live-connectors

Live intake is bounded:

• no background crawling;
• no autonomous polling;
• no shell execution;
• no page script execution;
• no form submission;
• no repository mutation;
• private-network rejection remains active;
• byte, page, packet, content-type, provenance, and rate diagnostics remain active.

The output is a candidate intake report. Downstream code should inspect provenance, residual ledgers, web fetch reports, missing obligations, and verifier route requests before reuse.

Local Agent-To-Agent Relay

PIC supports deterministic local inbox files for agent-to-agent candidate exchange.

pic agent message send --inbox inbox.json --sender agent:alice --text "Candidate packet: preserve residuals."
pic agent message receive --inbox inbox.json
pic agent inbox verify --inbox inbox.json
pic agent relay-readiness --profile development

Local relay records can help agents exchange checked work items, but they are not proof of external-world truth.

Production and adversarial profiles are stricter. They require identity context, nonce replay checks, signatures when policy requires them, and residual preservation before message content can contribute to packet promotion.

Packet Exchange Sidecar

Use packet exchange when reports need to move between agents or tools as files:

pic packet inspect --packet packet.json
pic packet merge --packets packets/*.json --output merged-packets.json
pic packet lineage --packet merged-packets.json

Packet content is data. Embedded commands, command-like strings, and safe_commands are not executed by PIC.

What To Read In Reports

For live intake, inspect:

• accepted
• allow_live_connectors
• provenance
• web_fetch_reports
• candidate_packets
• residual_ledger
• missing_obligations

For agent messages, inspect:

• accepted
• identity_verified
• nonce_ledger
• delivery_status
• verification_reports
• residual_ledger
• reasons

Safe Interpretation

Communication makes candidate work easier to exchange. It does not prove that the content is true, safe, complete, or settled.

accepted=true means the finite envelope passed checks. workflow_usable=true means the compact workflow can guide next actions. settled=true only appears when scoped finite obligations are discharged.