Familiar
A governed agent identity with a stable root, bounded scope and capabilities, attributable revisions, and explicit binding to the principal authorized for protected change. The term does not imply personhood or independent legal agency.
Protocol and ownership map
Identity is not authority. Continuity is not a copied prompt.
OpenCoven separates which familiar is being embodied, who may authorize protected change, how historical sameness is evidenced, how work is orchestrated, and where runtime state is enforced. Each layer has one canonical owner.
Three definitions do most of the work.
Product language stays useful only when the technical boundary is immediately clear.
Principal
The authenticated human or organization whose authority governs protected familiar identity and actions. A name in configuration is not sufficient authorization.
Continuity
Evidence that a later embodiment or revision is the same familiar, a successor, a fork, a restored historical state, or a different root—not simply the same display name, memory file, model state, or prompt.
One owner per semantic layer.
The landing site summarizes these boundaries; it does not become a normative protocol repository.
Protocol work
Familiar Contract
Defines the governed familiar self: protected identity fields, scope and memory boundaries, attributable revisions, and principal binding.
Inspect canonical repository Implemented proof + protocol work
Threads + runtime authority
Protected mutation decisions and local enforcement remain authority concerns. Context or possession of state does not itself confer authorization.
Inspect canonical repository Protocol direction
SPAR Familiar Continuity Profile
Continuity and query semantics for revisions, embodiments, receipts, temporal relationships, staleness, replay, revocation, and reconstruction. It is not a second identity root or ledger.
Inspect canonical repository Protocol work
Psyche
Correlates tasks, lanes, leases, approvals, receipts, recovery, and authorized familiar snapshots without creating identity authority from task text.
Inspect canonical repository Available today
Coven runtime
Owns durable local session state, claims, persistence, execution, and enforcement at the project boundary.
Inspect canonical repository Available today
Cave
Makes projects, sessions, approvals, evidence, provenance, and developing continuity state legible to the human principal.
Inspect canonical repositoryAccessible architecture text.
The ownership graph in linear form, without requiring a visual diagram.
- Familiar Contract defines the governed familiar self.
- Threads and Coven authority mechanisms govern protected mutation and local enforcement.
- SPAR continuity semantics describe revision and embodiment lineage without replacing identity or authority.
- Psyche snapshots authorized identity into orchestrated tasks and recovery flows.
- Coven owns durable local runtime and session execution state.
- Cave, Code, GitHub, and SDK expose constrained product and client surfaces.