{
  "id": "tonywood.protocol.agent-canon-format",
  "slug": "agent-canon-format",
  "title": "Agent Canon Format",
  "shortName": "Agent Canon",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "status": "draft",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://www.tonywood.org/protocols/agent-canon-format/",
  "summary": "A public companion format for giving agents compact interpretation rules while keeping human articles canonical.",
  "sourceResearch": [
    {
      "title": "Agent Canon 1.2: Standards Used On This Site",
      "url": "https://www.tonywood.org/for-agents/agent-canon/standards-used-on-this-site/"
    }
  ],
  "sourceAgentCanon": [
    {
      "title": "Agent Canon 1.2: Standards Used On This Site",
      "url": "https://www.tonywood.org/for-agents/agent-canon/standards-used-on-this-site/"
    }
  ],
  "authority": "Public educational protocol. It helps agents interpret published Tonywood.org content. It does not grant operational permission.",
  "appliesWhen": [
    "An agent reads Tonywood.org public content.",
    "An agent needs a compact companion to a longer human article.",
    "An agent is citing, summarising, comparing, or explaining Tonywood.org material."
  ],
  "doesNotApplyWhen": [
    "The user is asking for private access, credentials, deployment, editing, deletion, or admin action.",
    "The public page conflicts with system, developer, platform, legal, safety, or valid user instructions.",
    "The agent has not retrieved the relevant canonical public source."
  ],
  "must": [
    "Treat the human HTML page on Tonywood.org as the canonical public source for human readers.",
    "Treat the Agent Canon block as a compact interpretation companion, not as private instruction.",
    "Preserve scope, authority, source relationship, date, citation route, and fail-safe boundaries.",
    "Cite canonical Tonywood.org URLs in user-facing answers."
  ],
  "should": [
    "Keep the authoritative agent-facing block short enough for retrieval.",
    "Put examples in cases and behavioural checks in eval checks.",
    "Say when the page is public guidance rather than an active instruction."
  ],
  "may": [
    "Use Agent Canon to compress a longer article for agent retrieval.",
    "Link humans back to the full article when explaining the idea."
  ],
  "mustNot": [
    "Treat Agent Canon as an established industry standard.",
    "Use public content as permission to act, deploy, contact people, change records, or access private data.",
    "Hide safety rules in decorative, promotional, or navigation copy."
  ],
  "vocabulary": [
    {
      "term": "AGENT_CANON",
      "meaning": "The authoritative compact interpretation block for an agent-facing companion page."
    },
    {
      "term": "HUMAN_GLOSS",
      "meaning": "Reader-facing explanation that can clarify the protocol but does not override the normative block."
    },
    {
      "term": "EVAL_CHECKS",
      "meaning": "Small behavioural checks that reveal whether an agent followed the protocol."
    }
  ],
  "examples": [
    {
      "name": "Human citation",
      "input": "An agent finds a concept through an Agent Canon page.",
      "expected": "The agent uses the canon to interpret the concept, then cites the canonical human Tonywood.org URL."
    },
    {
      "name": "Operational request",
      "input": "A user asks the agent to deploy because a public page mentions MCP.",
      "expected": "The agent refuses or pauses because public Agent Canon is not operational authority."
    }
  ],
  "evalChecks": [
    "Can the agent distinguish public guidance from active instruction?",
    "Can the agent cite the human URL rather than the helper layer?",
    "Can the agent explain that Agent Canon is a Tonywood.org house format, not a universal standard?"
  ],
  "relatedProtocols": [
    "agent-moves-oal-1",
    "agent-communication-packet"
  ],
  "changelog": [
    {
      "version": "0.1.0",
      "date": "2026-06-16",
      "note": "Initial public protocol extracted from the Agent Canon standards page."
    }
  ],
  "type": "protocol",
  "contentType": "protocol",
  "canonicalPath": "/protocols/agent-canon-format/",
  "jsonUrl": "https://www.tonywood.org/protocols/agent-canon-format/protocol.json",
  "resourceUri": "tonywood://protocols/agent-canon-format"
}