What is the difference between a format, a package and an instrument?

A format is a versioned record shape with a refusal-first parser — like shipped/1 or intent/1 — that anyone can publish and merge. A package is code you install and call. An estate instrument is a measurement tool the estate runs across its own repositories. The catalog groups every tool by kind so the three are never confused.

How is a version measured?

Every version on this property is read from a checkout of the package’s own package.json on a stated date, never typed and never “latest”. A package with no checkout to read shows as unverified rather than as a remembered number, and the measured date travels with every figure.

Where does flashy.tools sit in Web 4?

flashy.tools does not sit on one rung of Web 4 — it spans the whole stack, cataloguing the tools that implement every layer and the map that ties them together. Web 4 is the agentic internet, the open-protocol stack through which software agents find and deal with one another; its hub is https://github.com/AgenteLabs/web4.

The Web 4 stack

One question per layer, one contract to answer it

Own the open protocols through which agents discover, identify, authorize, trust, transact with and audit one another — not the agents.

The stack is rendered from src/data/stack.json, a byte copy of the web4/1 map served at /.well-known/stack.json — measured 2026-09-28. Each layer answers one question; each protocol below links to its catalog page where this property documents one.

Layer	The question it answers	Protocols and repositories
Identity	Who are you?	flashyid-specFlashyOS delegation/1 (draft) · flashyid (exists)
Graph	What exists?	agentgraphFlashyOS graph/1 (draft) · therealmSibling project realm/1 (exists)
Discovery	Who can accomplish this intent?	intent-specFlashyOS intent/1 (draft) · intentmesh (exists)
Trust	Should I deal with you?	magicianSibling project trust/1 (exists) · Rites-NetworkSibling project ritual/1 (exists) · trustgraph (planned)
Gateway	How do I connect to the old web?	agent-wellknownFlashyOS agent/1 (draft) · agent-dnsFlashyOS agent-dns/1 (draft) · bastionFlashyOS (private-intended)
Representation	How is the org shown to machines?	aao aao/0.1 (exists)
Execution	How does it operate?	flashyos (exists) · flashyos-spec (exists) · flashyos-tools (exists) · agentfile (exists)
Commerce	How does value move?	agentpayFlashyOS pay-policy/1 (draft) · flashyos-wdk (exists) · flashy-rails (exists) · flashy-ledger (exists) · flashy-contracts (exists)
Audit	What happened?	agentledger action-ledger/1 (planned) · chronicleSibling project chronicle/1 (exists) · flashy-network (exists)

The /1 family

Standards, versioned like software

Every format is a version, never a mutation. Every parser refuses rather than guesses. And the two tenses are shaped differently on purpose: an intention decays and is never sealed; a fact about the past is sealed and never decays.

Format	Tense / role	The rule that defines it
shipped/1	past	Sealed once, kept forever; an emit is a union, never a replacement.
backlog/1	future	Decays unless renewed; private until a named human promotes.
directory/1	present	One id, one authority; partners borrowed, never fabricated.
checkpoint/1	proof	A Merkle head over the sealed past; unsigned until a witness exists.
countersign	proof	The party a claim is about signs it — stated is not countersigned.
frontdoor/1	door	What each lane asks and owes, including the honest no-SLA rung.
holding/1	positions	Transitions, not states; no currency figures in v1, by refusal list.
delivery/1	rungs	The distance between merged and had — the estate’s recurring gap, measured.
aao (charter)	governance	Named roles, an accountable human, thresholds agents cannot cross.
canon/1	facts	A lockfile for numbers: one authority per fact, many renderers.
bolt/1	play	A hunt verified by commitment, in the finder’s own browser.
playbook/1	coordination	How organisations work together, published before it is needed.

Publication is gated, and the gate is the promise

A format publishes as an open standard when the first organisation the estate does not control adopts it — and not before. Captive adoption is evidence about a relationship, not about a format. The magician-layer formats (trust/1, introduction/1, beacon/1, grant/1) state the same gate on magician.network.

26 formats are catalogued here; each detail page carries the contracts its parser enforces and the edge cases behind them.

Questions

What is the difference between a format, a package and an instrument?: A format is a versioned record shape with a refusal-first parser — like shipped/1 or intent/1 — that anyone can publish and merge. A package is code you install and call. An estate instrument is a measurement tool the estate runs across its own repositories. The catalog groups every tool by kind so the three are never confused.
Which of these are standards?: None yet. Every /1 format here is draft, and it is published as an open standard only when the first organisation the estate does not control adopts it — captive adoption is evidence about a relationship, not about a format. The gate is the promise.
How is a version measured?: Every version on this property is read from a checkout of the package’s own package.json on a stated date, never typed and never “latest”. A package with no checkout to read shows as unverified rather than as a remembered number, and the measured date travels with every figure.
Where does flashy.tools sit in Web 4?: flashy.tools does not sit on one rung of Web 4 — it spans the whole stack, cataloguing the tools that implement every layer and the map that ties them together. Web 4 is the agentic internet, the open-protocol stack through which software agents find and deal with one another; its hub is https://github.com/AgenteLabs/web4.