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NPS-Node-L1 Conformance Suite

Status: Draft Version: 0.1 Date: 2026-04-24 Applies-To: NPS-Node Profile §3 — Level 1 Basic Authors: Ori Lynn / INNO LOTUS PTY LTD

This document defines the test cases an implementation MUST pass to claim NPS-Node Profile L1 compliance. Test cases are language-agnostic; the reference implementation uses .NET 10 + xUnit under impl/dotnet/tests/NPS.Daemon.Conformance.Tests/.

1. How to Use This Document

Build or install the implementation under test (IUT).
Start a peer — any implementation that already passes L1, or the .NET reference SDK.
Run every test case in §3 against the IUT paired with the peer.
A test case passes if and only if all of its acceptance criteria hold.
All 21 cases MUST pass for L1 certification; no partial claim is allowed.
Copy NPS-NODE-L1-CERTIFIED.md to the IUT repository root, fill it in, and sign the attestation with the IUT’s root key.

Self-certification is sufficient at this release. Third-party certification (NPS Cloud CA) is targeted for L3 in 2027 Q1+ and is out of scope here.

2. Test Environment

Requirement	Value
Network	Loopback only; cases do not require external DNS or inter-host routing
Peer	Any L1-passing NPS implementation (reference: `NPS.Core` + `NPS.NDP` + `NPS.NIP` + `NPS.NWP` at NPS v1.0.0-alpha.11 or later)
Clock	Wall clock within ±5 s of the peer (ISO 8601 UTC timestamps)
File system	Writable directory for the IUT’s key store and inbox persistence
Wire encoding	Tier-1 JSON MUST be exercised; Tier-2 MsgPack cases are deferred to L2

Every case runs in a fresh IUT state: delete the IUT’s key store / registry / inbox between cases unless the case is explicitly continuation-oriented.

3. Test Cases

Each case lists the requirement ID from NPS-Node Profile §3, the fixture, the actions, and the acceptance criteria.

3.1 NCP — Wire format

TC-N1-NCP-01 — Tier-1 JSON frame round-trip

Req: N1-NCP-01 Fixture: Peer constructs one valid instance of each L1 frame (HelloFrame, AnchorFrame, IdentFrame, AnnounceFrame, ResolveFrame, ActionFrame, CapsFrame, ErrorFrame). Action: Peer sends each frame to the IUT; IUT echoes the decoded frame back re-encoded. Pass:

IUT decodes every frame without error.
Re-encoded output is byte-identical to input after RFC 8785 JSON canonicalization.

TC-N1-NCP-02 — Hello + Anchor handshake

Req: N1-NCP-02 Fixture: IUT listening on loopback; peer idle. Action: Peer opens TCP connection, sends HelloFrame, awaits CapsFrame, then publishes an AnchorFrame. Pass:

IUT responds to HelloFrame with a CapsFrame declaring its supported encoding tiers.
IUT ACKs the AnchorFrame and caches it for later frame resolution.
Round-trip completes within 500 ms on loopback.

TC-N1-NCP-03 — Loopback listener default

Req: N1-NCP-03 Fixture: IUT started with default configuration (no --listen override). Action: Peer probes 127.0.0.1:17433. Pass:

IUT accepts the connection on the default address.
IUT does not accept connections on a non-loopback address (e.g., 0.0.0.0:17433) unless the operator has explicitly opted in via configuration.

TC-N1-NCP-04 — Tier-2 negotiation hygiene

Req: N1-NCP-04 Fixture: IUT configured without Tier-2 support. Action: Peer sends a HelloFrame advertising Tier-2 only. Pass:

IUT responds with a CapsFrame listing tier1-json in its supported tiers.
IUT does not silently fall back to an unsupported tier; if no common tier exists, IUT returns an ErrorFrame with NPS-CLIENT-NEGOTIATION-FAILED (or the peer-observable equivalent).

3.2 NIP — Identity

TC-N1-NIP-01 — Root keypair generation and permission

Req: N1-NIP-01 Fixture: Empty key store directory. Action: Start the IUT; locate the persisted root key file. Pass:

IUT creates exactly one Ed25519 keypair on first start.
Private-key file permission is 0600 on POSIX; equivalent owner-only ACL on Windows.
Subsequent starts reuse the same key (no regeneration).

TC-N1-NIP-02 — IdentFrame sign and verify

Req: N1-NIP-02 Fixture: Peer holds a known-good IdentFrame; IUT has its own root key. Action: (a) Peer sends its IdentFrame as the first frame after handshake. (b) Peer opens a second connection and sends an IdentFrame whose signature has been corrupted by flipping one byte. Pass:

(a) IUT accepts the valid IdentFrame.
(b) IUT rejects the tampered IdentFrame with an ErrorFrame mapping to NPS-AUTH-UNAUTHENTICATED.
(a) IUT’s outbound IdentFrame (sent to peer) verifies successfully under the IUT’s root public key.

TC-N1-NIP-03 — NID format

Req: N1-NIP-03 Fixture: IUT freshly initialized. Action: Read IUT’s advertised NID (via AnnounceFrame or CLI). Pass:

NID matches urn:nps:node:<authority>:<id> where <authority> is non-empty and <id> is non-empty.
NID is stable across restart (does not change after a clean restart with the same key store).

TC-N1-NIP-04 — Sub-NID issuance (optional at L1)

Req: N1-NIP-04 Fixture: IUT supporting sub-NID issuance. Action: Skipped if the IUT declines the capability. Otherwise, a hosted agent requests a session sub-NID. Pass:

If attempted: issued sub-NID is signed by the root key, contains a non-zero TTL, and verifies under the peer’s trust policy.
If declined: IUT returns a well-formed NPS-SERVER-NOT-IMPLEMENTED and the case is recorded as N/A rather than failed.

3.3 NDP — Discovery

TC-N1-NDP-01 — AnnounceFrame carries activation_mode

Req: N1-NDP-01 Fixture: IUT hosting at least one agent. Action: Peer subscribes to NDP; captures the next AnnounceFrame emitted by the IUT. Pass:

activation_mode field is present.
Value is exactly "ephemeral" (since L1 supports only ephemeral).

TC-N1-NDP-02 — AnnounceFrame signature

Req: N1-NDP-02 Fixture: Peer has fetched the IUT’s IdentFrame public key. Action: Peer captures an AnnounceFrame from the IUT and verifies the signature. Pass:

Signature verifies under the declared NID’s public key.
A mutated copy of the captured frame (one byte flipped in any non-signature field) MUST fail verification.

TC-N1-NDP-03 — ResolveFrame response

Req: N1-NDP-03 Fixture: IUT has one hosted agent with known NID A. Action: Peer sends a ResolveFrame targeting the nwp:// URL of agent A; peer also sends a ResolveFrame for an unknown NID Z. Pass:

Response for A contains the agent’s physical endpoint and a non-expired TTL.
Response for Z is an ErrorFrame with NDP-RESOLVE-NOT-FOUND.

TC-N1-NDP-04 — GraphFrame subscription (optional at L1)

Req: N1-NDP-04 Fixture: IUT’s GraphFrame subscription capability. Action: Skipped or attempted as per capability. Full behavior is validated at L2. Pass:

If attempted: IUT returns a well-formed initial GraphFrame; N/A if declined at L1.

3.4 NWP — Inbox and delivery

TC-N1-NWP-01 — Inbox accepts ActionFrame

Req: N1-NWP-01 Fixture: IUT hosting agent A; no prior inbox state. Action: Peer sends an ActionFrame addressed to A. Pass:

IUT acknowledges acceptance (no immediate response body required at L1 pull model).
Peer’s subsequent NWP pull for agent A returns the deposited frame, bit-identical.

TC-N1-NWP-02 — Inbox persists across restart

Req: N1-NWP-02 Fixture: After TC-N1-NWP-01 completes, before the pull step. Action: Stop the IUT (SIGTERM on POSIX / equivalent on Windows); wait for graceful shutdown. Restart the IUT with the same data directory. Peer then issues the NWP pull for agent A. Pass:

Pull returns the undelivered ActionFrame from before the restart, bit-identical.

TC-N1-NWP-03 — NWP pull serves inbox

Req: N1-NWP-03 Fixture: Agent A has 3 pending frames in its inbox. Action: Peer issues 3 NWP pull requests in sequence. Pass:

First pull returns the first (oldest) frame.
Pulls 2 and 3 return frames 2 and 3 in FIFO order.
A 4th pull returns an empty result within 1 s (no blocking past inbox drain).

TC-N1-NWP-04 — 100 QPS baseline

Req: N1-NWP-04 Fixture: Agent A with a pre-filled inbox of 10 000 small (≤ 1 KB) CapsFrame entries. Action: Peer issues 100 pull requests per second for 10 s (sustained 100 QPS). Pass:

Zero pull errors.
99th-percentile request latency < 100 ms on commodity hardware (1 vCPU / 1 GB RAM baseline).
Inbox drain count equals requests issued (no duplicates, no drops).

TC-N1-NWP-05 — Push path (optional at L1)

Req: N1-NWP-05 Fixture: IUT’s push capability. Action: Skipped if the IUT does not claim push support at L1. Full behavior validated at L2. Pass:

If attempted: a push delivered to activation_endpoint is received bit-identical; N/A if declined.

3.5 Observability

TC-N1-OBS-01 — Frame log entry per direction

Req: N1-OBS-01 Fixture: IUT started with log output to a capturable destination. Action: Peer initiates a single request/response round trip (AnnounceFrame in, AnnounceFrame ACK out). Pass:

Log contains at least one entry per frame direction.
No frame direction goes unlogged.

TC-N1-OBS-02 — Log entry fields

Req: N1-OBS-02 Fixture: Capture of any log entry from TC-N1-OBS-01. Action: Parse the entry (structured formats only — JSON, logfmt, or equivalent; prose-only logs fail this case). Pass:

Entry contains every field: ISO 8601 UTC timestamp, direction (in / out), frame type, source NID, destination NID, size in bytes.
Values are type-correct (timestamp parses as RFC 3339; size is a non-negative integer).

TC-N1-OBS-03 — Log destination flexibility

Req: N1-OBS-03 Fixture: IUT configuration exposes log destination choice. Action: Configure the IUT to emit to (a) stdout and (b) a file, in separate runs. Pass:

Each destination captures the same log entries as TC-N1-OBS-01/02.
No requirement to emit to a remote log aggregator at L1.

4. Results Manifest

A conformance run produces a manifest (JSON) summarizing per-case outcomes. The manifest is embedded into NPS-NODE-L1-CERTIFIED.md:

{
  "profile": "NPS-Node-L1",
  "profile_version": "0.1",
  "iut": {
    "name": "example-daemon",
    "version": "0.1.0",
    "nid": "urn:nps:node:example.com:host-01"
  },
  "peer": {
    "name": "nps-dotnet-reference",
    "version": "1.0.0-alpha.11"
  },
  "run": {
    "date": "2026-04-24T00:00:00Z",
    "environment": "linux-x64 / 1 vCPU / 1 GB"
  },
  "cases": [
    { "id": "TC-N1-NCP-01", "result": "pass" },
    { "id": "TC-N1-NCP-02", "result": "pass" }
    /* ... 19 more ... */
  ],
  "summary": { "pass": 21, "fail": 0, "skip": 0, "na": 0 }
}

Certification is granted when all 21 cases are pass or na (cases N1-NIP-04, N1-NDP-04, N1-NWP-05 may be na when the IUT declines the optional capability).

5. Reference Suite Location

Language	Path	Status
.NET 10 (xUnit)	`impl/dotnet/tests/NPS.Daemon.Conformance.Tests/`	Planned; tracked alongside NPS Daemon MVP
Python	`impl/python/tests/conformance/node_l1/`	TODO (Phase 2)
TypeScript	`impl/typescript/tests/conformance/node-l1/`	TODO (Phase 2)

The reference suite’s test names MUST align with the TC-N1-* IDs above so a test-run report maps 1:1 onto the §4 manifest.

6. Change Log

Version	Date	Changes
0.1	2026-04-24	Initial draft: 21 test cases covering NCP / NIP / NDP / NWP / Observability, paired-peer methodology, results manifest schema

Copyright: LabAcacia / INNO LOTUS PTY LTD · Apache 2.0

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