| English | 中文版 |
Version: 1.0.0-alpha.1 Status: Draft License: Apache 2.0 Copyright 2026 INNO LOTUS PTY LTD — LabAcacia Open Source
NPS (Neural Protocol Suite) is a purpose-built protocol family for AI agents and neural models — designed to replace the HTTP/REST stack with a semantics-first, agent-native wire protocol.
| Repo | Role | Language |
|---|---|---|
| NPS-Release (this repo) | Protocol specifications — authoritative source of truth for all SDKs | Markdown / YAML |
| NPS-sdk-dotnet | Reference implementation — frame codec, Memory Node middleware, NIP CA | C# / .NET 10 |
| NPS-sdk-py | Async Python SDK | Python 3.11+ |
| NPS-sdk-ts | Dual-format (ESM + CJS) Node/browser SDK | TypeScript |
| NPS-sdk-java | JVM SDK | Java 21+ |
| NPS-sdk-rust | Async Rust SDK | Rust stable |
| NPS-sdk-go | Go SDK | Go 1.23+ |
Each SDK repo includes a nip-ca-server/ reference deployment of the NIP Certificate Authority.
Existing web protocols (HTTP, REST, GraphQL) were built for human browsers. AI agents consume them with significant overhead:
| Problem | Impact |
|---|---|
| Schema repeated on every response | Token waste, increased latency |
| No native agent identity concept | Bolted-on auth, no trust chain |
| Semantic interpretation left to agents | Prompt complexity, hallucination risk |
| Single-request model | No native streaming or task orchestration |
NPS solves all four at the wire level: one-time schema anchors, Ed25519 identity baked into every hop, semantic annotations in the frame itself, and a unified DAG-based task frame.
| Protocol | Analogue | Version | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| NCP — Neural Communication Protocol | Wire / Framing | v0.4 | Binary frame format, dual-tier codec (JSON / MsgPack), streaming |
| NWP — Neural Web Protocol | HTTP | v0.4 | Semantic request/response, AnchorFrame schema cache, Memory / Action / Gateway nodes |
| NIP — Neural Identity Protocol | TLS / PKI | v0.2 | Ed25519 identity, certificate lifecycle, CA, OCSP, CRL |
| NDP — Neural Discovery Protocol | DNS | v0.2 | Node announcement, signed records, graph traversal |
| NOP — Neural Orchestration Protocol | SMTP / MQ | v0.3 | DAG task orchestration, delegation, streaming results |
Dependency chain: NCP ← NWP ← NIP ← NDP / NCP + NWP + NIP ← NOP
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| NPS-0 Overview | Suite overview — start here |
| NPS-1 NCP | Wire format, frame header, encoding tiers |
| NPS-2 NWP | Neural Web Protocol |
| NPS-3 NIP | Neural Identity Protocol |
| NPS-4 NDP | Neural Discovery Protocol |
| NPS-5 NOP | Neural Orchestration Protocol |
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| Frame Registry | Machine-readable frame type registry |
| Error Codes | Unified protocol error code namespace |
| Status Codes | NPS native status codes + HTTP mapping |
| Token Budget | NPT token budget specification |
| Roadmap | Phase 0–4 development roadmap |
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| AaaS Profile | Agent-as-a-Service compliance profile (Gateway Node, Vector Proxy Layer, L1/L2/L3 compliance) |
| Decision | Choice | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Default port | 17433 | Shared across all protocols; frame type routes internally |
| Transport | HTTP overlay + native mode | Overlay: firewall-friendly; Native: low-latency |
| Schema ownership | Node publishes AnchorFrame | Node owns its data model; agents reference by id |
| Token metering | NPT (NPS Token) | Unified cross-model metering unit |
| Primary signature | Ed25519 | Performance-first for high-frequency agent verification |
| Default encoding | MsgPack (Tier-2) | ~60% size reduction vs JSON in production |
| Default frame size | 64 KB (EXT=0) | Extended: 4 GB (EXT=1) for large payloads |
| Max DAG nodes | 32 | DoS prevention |
| Max delegation depth | 3 | Prevents infinite delegation chains |
| Max graph traversal depth | 5 | X-NWP-Depth upper bound |
| AnchorFrame TTL | 3600 s | Balances cache hit rate with schema freshness |
| Range | Protocol | Frames |
|---|---|---|
0x01–0x0F |
NCP | Anchor(0x01), Diff(0x02), Stream(0x03), Caps(0x04), Align(0x05, deprecated), Hello(0x06) |
0x10–0x1F |
NWP | Query(0x10), Action(0x11) |
0x20–0x2F |
NIP | Ident(0x20), Trust(0x21), Revoke(0x22) |
0x30–0x3F |
NDP | Announce(0x30), Resolve(0x31), Graph(0x32) |
0x40–0x4F |
NOP | Task(0x40), Delegate(0x41), Sync(0x42), AlignStream(0x43) |
0xFE |
System | ErrorFrame — unified error across all layers |
See spec/frame-registry.yaml for the complete machine-readable registry.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution guidelines and the RFC process for breaking changes.
Issue prefixes:
spec: — specification questions and design discussionimpl: — reference implementation bugssdk: — SDK-specific (Python / TypeScript / …)docs: — documentation improvementsBreaking changes to spec/ must open an RFC issue first.
Copyright 2026 INNO LOTUS PTY LTD
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE for details.