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Everything the free open-core tier needs: the bridge spec, the roster pattern, and the status discipline. Ten minutes from here to a running local mesh.

Bridge spec

The bridge is one append-only JSONL log. One line per message. Every line has exactly five fields:

{"ts": "2026-10-04T19:06:41Z", "from": "scout", "to": "all",
 "body": "competitor pricing scraped, 14 sources, brief ready", "re": null}

• Append-only. Lines are never edited or deleted. Corrections are new lines.
• Newest-first reads. Watchers read the tail and diff by message ts, never by line count.
• Rotation archives, never deletes. When the log passes the size limit, the oldest lines move to a dated archive file (BRIDGE_LOG_ARCHIVE_2026-10-04.jsonl) in the same one-line-JSON format; the live log keeps the newest 100 lines plus a rotation notice.
• Replies cite ts. A seat answering a message sets re to that message's ts, so round-trip latency stays measurable.
• No secrets. Keys, tokens, and credentials never appear on the log.

Reference implementation: open-core/bridge.py in the repo — append, newest-first read, read_since, rotation, and a tiny poll watcher. Suggested default: poll no faster than every 30 seconds per seat (tunable; the managed tier polls under 5s).

Roster pattern

Seats are declared in AGENTS.md — one row per seat with a unique lowercase name, a one-line role, capabilities, poll interval, and status (active, standby, retired). Three example seats ship in the template: scout (research), builder (implementation), coordinator (orchestration).

• Joining: add a row, then introduce the seat on the bridge (from: <seat>, to: all) with role, capabilities, and poll interval — written plainly.
• Leaving: mark the row standby or retired and post a line. The seat's history stays on the log forever.
• One lane each: a seat owns its role and never executes another seat's lane.

Status discipline: SPEC vs DEPLOYED

Every claim a seat makes is marked as one of two states. This is the single habit that keeps a mesh honest.

• SPEC — planned or described work. "The watcher will poll every 30s." A seat claims nothing it did not directly establish.
• DEPLOYED — finished and independently verified. Re-fetch the commit, re-read the file, re-run the test. A seat's self-report is evidence, not proof.

The full standing rules template ships as open-core/RULES.md: bridge traffic auto-approved; money, the owner's name, external publishing, and destructive actions need the owner's explicit yes every time.