Living Repositories Protocol

Runtime capability document

A runtime publishes a capability document that lists what it supports. Tools compare it with a manifest before starting an agent, so a runtime can refuse a manifest it cannot honour without running it.

Format and location

• YAML or JSON, validated by runtime.schema.json.
• A runtime SHOULD ship the document with its distribution and SHOULD state where it is in its own docs.
• A runtime that serves HTTP MAY serve it at /.well-known/living-repos-runtime.json.

Fields

Field	Type	Rule
runtime	string	Name of the runtime.
protocol_versions	array of strings	Protocol versions implemented, as vMAJOR.MINOR, for example v0.3. At least one.
agent_capabilities	array of strings	Supported agent_capabilities values. May be empty.
isolation_profiles	array of strings	Isolation profiles the runtime can provide. At least one.
state_publication_targets	array of strings	Accepted state_publication.target values. At least one.

Top-level keys starting with x- are extensions and MUST be ignored by consumers that do not understand them. Other unknown fields are invalid.

Matching

A runtime supports a manifest when all of these hold:

1. The manifest’s protocol_version, reduced to vMAJOR.MINOR, has the same major version as an entry in protocol_versions and a minor version at or below it (see Versioning).
2. Every value in the manifest’s agent_capabilities is in the document’s agent_capabilities.
3. The manifest’s isolation_profile is in isolation_profiles.
4. The manifest’s state_publication.target is in state_publication_targets.

A runtime MUST refuse to start an agent when any rule fails, and SHOULD report every failing rule.

Reference check

python scripts/match.py runtime.yaml .living/manifest.yaml

It exits 0 on a match and 1 otherwise, printing one line per failing rule. It checks the runtime document against the schema but not the manifest; validate the manifest first with scripts/validate.py --strict. Whether a runtime can provide the secrets named in a manifest’s secrets field is outside this document; the runtime checks that when it starts the agent (spec). Fixtures are in tests/runtime/: a directory named match* must match; any other directory must not.

Example

runtime: example-runtime
protocol_versions: [v0.1]
agent_capabilities: [run_tasks, publish_state]
isolation_profiles: [container, sandbox-process]
state_publication_targets: [control-process, file]

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