PTP/1.0 — Prompt Transport Protocol | doing the math for you

Intended status: Informational
Expires: 1 October 2026
Date: 1 April 2026
Author: An Interested Party

Abstract

PTP/1.0 specifies a protocol for transporting INTENT and contextual HINTS in lieu of artifacts. A sender transmits a compact description of the desired outcome; a receiver reconstructs the artifact using local generative models, tools, and shared priors. The specification defines capability negotiation (style, risk, taste), wire formats, response metadata, and error codes (e.g., 406 Not My Aesthetic), and introduces evaluation metrics such as Bits per Intent (BPI) and Fidelity@Vibe. Security, privacy, legal, and operational considerations are addressed.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted for community discussion. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Comments are welcome.

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

1. Terminology

INTENT: A concise description of what the sender wishes to exist on the receiver’s side. Humans call this “what I meant.”
STYLECAPS: A negotiated capability profile for taste and form (e.g., boardroom-minimal, substack-earnest, conference-apocalyptic).
RISK: A scalar 0.0, 1.0 controlling creative divergence. Higher is braver.
TABOOS: A list of constraints the receiver’s model MUST honor (e.g., “no cats,” “no Comic Sans,” “do not mention Q2 incident”).
HINTS: Optional structure and asset cues (e.g., “3 charts,” “teal palette,” “10 ±2 pages”).
MODEL: The receiver’s generative system (LLM, diffusion, TTS, editors, plugins, taste databases).
PROOFS: Lightweight attestations that certain constraints were respected (e.g., alt‑text present, sources cited, budget cap not exceeded).
DELIGHT HASH: A non‑cryptographic hash summarizing subjective quality; see §9.
BPI: Bits per Intent; effective prompt length divided by reconstructed artifact size.
Fidelity@Vibe: Agreement between reconstructed artifact and sender’s expectation along latent style axes.
Air‑Gapped Reconstruction: Delivery of INTENT via analog means (paper, semaphore), followed by digital expansion on the receiver side.

2. Introduction

Traditional compression shrinks payloads by exploiting statistical redundancy. PTP externalizes redundancy into the receiver’s shared priors: their model, tools, branding memory, and cultural context. Instead of files, PTP ships prompts. The receiver recomposes the artifact locally.

PTP is not lossless. It is spirit‑preserving under negotiated STYLECAPS and bounded RISK. Like all effective protocols, it replaces certainty with negotiation and insists this is an upgrade.

3. Architecture

PTP comprises:

Sender: Emits INTENT and optional HINTS/TABOOS.
Receiver: Advertises MODEL, TOOLS, and STYLECAPS; performs reconstruction; returns PROOFS and DELIGHT HASH.
Sidecars: Optional calendars, CRMs, brand guides, and notebooks that whisper context. Sidecars are untrustworthy on Tuesdays.

3.1 Trust and Shared Priors

Success depends on shared priors (brand history, human relationships, what “edgy” means this quarter). PTP formalizes how much the receiver is allowed to assume, and how much the sender dares to omit.

4. Protocol Overview

PTP/1.0 defines a two‑stage exchange (capability negotiation, then prompt transport) over any reliable channel. The wire format is human‑readable headers followed by an optional JSON body.

SENDER                                 RECEIVER
  |  INTENT + STYLECAPS? + RISK?  --->   |
  |                               <---   |  ACK(MODEL_VERSION, TOOLS, TEMPERATURE)
  |  PROMPT (+ HINTS, TABOOS)     --->   |
  |                               <---   |  ARTIFACTS + PROOFS + HASH(DELIGHT)

4.1 Handshake (PTP/1.0)

Hello: Sender transmits PTP-HELLO with proposed STYLECAPS and RISK bounds.
Ack: Receiver replies PTP-ACK with MODEL_VERSION, TOOLS, and TEMPERATURE defaults.
Prompt: Sender emits PTP-PROMPT, containing INTENT, HINTS, TABOOS, and optional seeds.
Render: Receiver returns PTP-RENDER with artifacts (inline or by URI), PROOFS, and DELIGHT.

4.2 Idempotency and Seeds

Replay-Seed enables deterministic re‑expansion. If omitted, the receiver MAY choose joy.

5. Message Semantics

All fields are case‑insensitive keys with ASCII tokens unless otherwise noted.

Intent: UTF‑8 string; REQUIRED.
Style-Caps: token list; OPTIONAL; see registry in §13.
Risk: float 0,1; OPTIONAL; default 0.3.
Hints: free‑text or structured list; OPTIONAL.
Taboos: list of constraints; OPTIONAL but recommended.
Model-Preference: token (e.g., gpt-5.x-any); OPTIONAL.
Tool-Hints: tokens (e.g., charts, slides, broll, tts); OPTIONAL.
Locale: BCP 47; OPTIONAL.
A11y: accessibility requirements (alt‑text, captions, contrast); OPTIONAL.
Privacy: pseudonymize=true|false, strip-metadata=true|false; OPTIONAL.
Budget: compute or currency cap; OPTIONAL.
Latency: soft deadline; OPTIONAL.
Accept-Delight: 0,1 threshold; OPTIONAL.
Replay-Seed: 64‑bit int; OPTIONAL.

Receiver response fields:

Artifacts: list of URIs or inline payload digests.
Proofs: signed attestations of constraints met (e.g., WCAG, citation count).
Delight: float 0,1 and DELIGHT HASH.
Costs: compute/time/$.
Errors: zero or more, see §10.

6. Wire Formats

6.1 Header Form (HTTP‑like)

PTP/1.0 HELLO\r\n
Intent: Summarize Q3 like last time; heroic supply chain; calm CFO\r\n
Style-Caps: boardroom-minimal, substack-earnest\r\n
Risk: 0.25\r\n
Hints: 3 charts; 28 slides; teal accent\r\n
Taboos: no Comic Sans; do not mention Q2 incident\r\n
Model-Preference: gpt-5.x-any\r\n
Tool-Hints: charts, slides, broll\r\n
Locale: en-US\r\n
A11y: alt-text-required, captions-required\r\n
Budget: 4 GPU-minutes or $1.50\r\n
Latency: 120s\r\n
Accept-Delight: >=0.82\r\n
Replay-Seed: 42\r\n
\r\n

Receiver ACK:

PTP/1.0 ACK\r\n
Model-Version: gpt-5.3r-sdr-2025-08-31\r\n
Tools: chartkit/2.1, slidecraft/4.0, stockphoto/1.3, tts/9.0\r\n
Temperature: 0.7\r\n
Style-Caps-Accepted: boardroom-minimal, substack-earnest\r\n
Risk-Max: 0.4\r\n
\r\n

Prompt and Render follow similarly with PTP-PROMPT and PTP-RENDER start lines.

6.2 JSON Envelope (Alternative)

A compact JSON form is allowed when binary framing is available.

{
  "ptp": "1.0",
  "type": "HELLO",
  "intent": "Summarize Q3 like last time; heroic supply chain; calm CFO",
  "style_caps": ["boardroom-minimal", "substack-earnest"],
  "risk": 0.25,
  "hints": ["3 charts", "28 slides", "teal accent"],
  "taboos": ["no Comic Sans", "do not mention Q2 incident"],
  "locale": "en-US",
  "a11y": ["alt-text-required", "captions-required"],
  "budget": {"gpu_minutes": 4, "usd": 1.5},
  "latency_s": 120,
  "accept_delight": 0.82,
  "replay_seed": 42
}

6.3 ABNF (Simplified)

See Appendix A for full grammar.

7. Negotiation

7.1 STYLECAPS Registry

Style-Caps values are tokens from the IANA registry (see §13). Implementations SHOULD support at least:

boardroom-minimal
substack-earnest
conference-apocalyptic
anderson-pastel
scientific-staid
advertising-grandiose

7.2 RISK and TEMPERATURE

Risk governs structure‑level exploration; Temperature governs token‑level variability. Receivers SHOULD cap Risk to avoid accidental poetry in financial statements.

7.3 HINTS and TABOOS Precedence

TABOOS MUST override HINTS. Where TABOOS conflict (e.g., “no images” vs. “include a photo”), the receiver MUST return 409 Vibe Conflict.

8. Metrics

8.1 Bits per Intent (BPI)

BPI = len(prompt_bits) / len(reconstructed_bits).

High BPI indicates efficient vibe transmission. Zero BPI is only achievable by sending nothing and hoping.

8.2 Fidelity@Vibe

Cosine similarity between latent style vectors of expected vs. reconstructed artifacts, evaluated at agreed axes (palette, tone, pacing). Values in 0,1.

8.3 Delight Hash

DELIGHT = clamp( Sigmoid(human_arousal × appropriateness) ).

DELIGHT HASH = xxhash64(INTENT || ARTIFACT_META || RECIPIENT_TASTE).

Hash is not tamper‑proof; it is ceremonial, like a ribbon.

9. Error Codes

406 Not My Aesthetic — STYLECAPS mismatch beyond tolerances.
409 Vibe Conflict — TABOOS/HINTS contradictory.
418 I’m A Vibe — Receiver refuses literalism.
451 Unavailable For Legal Vibes — Counsel objected to intent reconstruction.
509 Bandwidth Exceeded (Compute) — Budget or Latency constraints violated.
522 Prior Not Shared — Insufficient context to reconstruct (see §3.1).
598 Prompt Injection Suspected — Sidecar attempted to sway output.
599 Model Drift — Receiver model changed during session.

Receivers SHOULD return partial artifacts with PROOFS when safe.

10. Security Considerations

Prompt Injection (Reverse): Local tools may bias reconstruction (e.g., calendar nudges). Receivers MUST sandbox sidecars and log influence traces.
Denial of Wallet: Malicious prompts force maximal creativity. Enforce Budget caps and early stopping.
Model Drift: Pin Model-Version or use Replay-Seed for determinism.
Data Leakage: Reconstructed artifacts may leak local priors. Apply Privacy directives (strip-metadata, pseudonymize).
Downgrade Attacks: Attackers may negotiate low STYLECAPS to force blandness. Senders SHOULD require minimum STYLECAPS.
Supply Chain: Verify TOOLS; mistrust any plugin named free-stock-photo-ultimate.

11. Privacy Considerations

PTP transmits intentions rather than data, which changes but does not eliminate risk. Receivers SHOULD:

Avoid reading sensitive sidecars unless explicitly permitted.
Redact names when pseudonymize=true.
Emit PROOFS of redaction.

Senders SHOULD avoid encoding secrets in INTENT such as “use password swordfish.”

12. Legal Considerations

PTP rarely transmits copyrighted artifacts; it transmits vibes. Nevertheless, reconstructed outputs may overlap with protected works. Implementations SHOULD:

Track provenance where possible.
Emit citations when HINTS imply factual content.
Respect TABOOS related to trademarks and sensitive topics.

PTP‑DRM (Appendix C) watermarks prompts, not outputs, to preserve authorship of intent.

13. IANA Considerations (Satirical)

IANA is requested to create the following registries:

PTP Style‑Caps Registry — initial values in §7.1.
PTP Error Codes Registry — initial values in §9.
PTP Proof Types Registry — e.g., wcag-audit, source-count, budget-adherence.

Change control is via Rough Consensus and Running Aesthetics (RCRA).

14. Internationalization (I18N) and Accessibility (A11Y)

Implementations MUST accept BCP 47 locales and SHOULD generate accessible artifacts. Where STYLECAPS conflict with accessibility (e.g., pale pastels vs. contrast), accessibility MUST win unless RISK > 0.9 and the medium is fashion.

15. Operational Considerations

Cache expansions where lawful to reduce compute.
Pin model versions for quarterly deliverables.
Record Delight trends to detect culture drift.
Provide a Grandma Fallback path: if no MODEL, route INTENT to nearest capable grandchild.

16. Examples

16.1 Quarterly Report

HELLO

Intent: Q3 report like Q2; make supply chain heroic; soothe CFO
Style-Caps: boardroom-minimal
Risk: 0.2
Hints: 3 charts; 28 slides; teal accent
Taboos: no Comic Sans; no Q2 incident
Budget: $2.00; Latency: 180s; Accept-Delight: 0.8

ACK

Model-Version: gpt-5.3r-2025-08-31; Tools: chartkit/2.1, slidecraft/4.0

RENDER

Artifacts: [uri:slides://q3-deck, uri:img://hero-supply.jpg]
Proofs: [wcag-audit, budget-adherence, citation-count>=3]
Delight: 0.83 (hash: d3ad‑b33f‑42)

16.2 Journalism

Intent: Write the article I would have written if I had reported it
Style-Caps: substack-earnest
Risk: 0.5
Hints: 1200 words; 3 quotes; skeptical hope
Taboos: no invented statistics

Response may include hallucinated sources; PROOFS SHOULD include source provenance or 598 Prompt Injection Suspected.

16.3 Air‑Gapped Reconstruction

Sender writes on paper: “Christmas letter, warm but concise, two photos from Kyoto, no mention of job loss.” Receiver webcam ingests; artifacts appear. Grandma smiles.

16.4 Film Pitch

Intent: Make it feel like a sequel we can afford
Style-Caps: advertising-grandiose
Risk: 0.6
Hints: 94 minutes; orange/teal; unanimous 62% critics

Receiver returns a tight trailer, three posters, and a plausible streaming deal.

17. Conformance

A PTP‑conformant Sender MUST implement HELLO and PROMPT and be capable of emitting TABOOS. A PTP‑conformant Receiver MUST implement ACK and RENDER, honor TABOOS over HINTS, and provide at least one PROOF type. Both sides MUST log Model-Version.

18. Security and Ethics Addendum

PTP can amplify bias embedded in STYLECAPS and priors. Operators SHOULD perform regular fairness reviews and allow an ethics-mode=strict that reduces RISK and requires citations for consequential claims.

19. References

BCP 14: Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels.
Common sense and uncommon taste.

Appendix A: ABNF (Informal)

ptp-message   = start-line CRLF *(header CRLF) CRLF [body]
start-line    = "PTP/1.0" SP method
method        = "HELLO" / "ACK" / "PROMPT" / "RENDER"
header        = key ":" SP value
key           = 1*( ALPHA / "-" )
value         = *( VCHAR / SP )
body          = *OCTET
CRLF          = %x0D.0A
SP            = %x20

Appendix B: JSON Schema (Sketch)

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "title": "PTP Envelope",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "ptp": {"const": "1.0"},
    "type": {"enum": ["HELLO", "ACK", "PROMPT", "RENDER"]},
    "intent": {"type": "string", "minLength": 1},
    "style_caps": {"type": "array", "items": {"type": "string"}},
    "risk": {"type": "number", "minimum": 0, "maximum": 1},
    "hints": {"type": "array", "items": {"type": "string"}},
    "taboos": {"type": "array", "items": {"type": "string"}},
    "locale": {"type": "string"},
    "a11y": {"type": "array", "items": {"type": "string"}},
    "budget": {"type": "object"},
    "latency_s": {"type": "integer", "minimum": 0},
    "accept_delight": {"type": "number", "minimum": 0, "maximum": 1},
    "replay_seed": {"type": "integer"}
  },
  "required": ["ptp", "type", "intent"]
}

Appendix C: PTP‑DRM (Prompt Watermarking)

PTP‑DRM watermarks the prompt rather than the output. Receivers SHOULD embed a short, lossy watermark derived from INTENT and STYLECAPS into PROOFS. Authors thus retain moral rights to the vibe, which is the only right anyone truly cares about.

Watermark payload (example):

wm = xxhash64( normalize(INTENT) || sort(STYLECAPS) || Replay-Seed )

Verification MAY be social rather than cryptographic. If a room of peers agrees it “feels like you,” that is sufficient for the registry.

Appendix D: Change Log

-00 (2025‑09‑19): Initial draft.
PlantUML sequence diagram

End of PTP/1.0 Internet‑Draft.

PTP/1.0 — Prompt Transport Protocol