Live Intake and Agent Messages

Live Intake And Agent Messages

This page explains PIC 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

Live intake is bounded and source-specific. A command may fetch only the source you name.

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 not:

• background crawling;
• autonomous polling;
• form submission;
• arbitrary network access;
• execution of page code;
• automatic trust in external text;
• downstream packet promotion.

Agent Messages

Use local message commands when agents exchange candidate packets through declared inbox files:

pic agent inbox init --inbox inbox.json
pic agent message create --sender agent:alice --text "Candidate packet: preserve residuals." --output message.json
pic agent message contract --message message.json
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

Message checks preserve provenance, nonces, identity context, and residuals. They do not create broad external messaging authority.

Production Identity

Production agent-to-agent verification should use accepted identity context:

uv run pic identity derive-context --population examples/agent_population_signed.json --profile production --output identity-context.json
uv run pic agent message verify --message examples/agent_network/agent_message.json --profile production --identity-context identity-context.json

Without accepted identity context, production messages remain diagnostic candidates.

Bridge To Runtime And Phase Lab

External intake can be bridged into runtime or Phase Lab diagnostics, but raw external packet volume is not progress.

uv run pic ecology bridge-runtime --report examples/agent_network/general_intake_report.example.json
uv run pic phase lab ingest --store pic-phase-lab --report examples/phase_lab/runtime_report_1.json

Use the resulting residuals and blockers as repair queues, not as approval to act.