Protocol Overview

This document describes the layers of the Open Ledger Runtime Standard and points to the normative specifications for each layer.

Layers

1. Wire Format: JSON and Protobuf encodings, canonical serialization, and versioning rules.
2. API Contract: HTTP and gRPC interfaces and compatibility expectations.
3. Ledger Model: accounts, balances, postings, and invariants.
4. Transaction Semantics: lifecycle, ordering, idempotency, and retries.
5. Governance Neutrality: decision package handling and enforcement modes.
6. Audit Logging: immutable audit trail requirements and event schema.
7. Security and Threat Model: assets, trust boundaries, and mitigations.
8. Observability: metrics and health endpoints required for operations.
9. Registries: canonical registries for error codes, algorithms, and media types.

Normative Requirements

Implementations claiming conformance to this standard MUST implement the requirements defined in the documents below:

• STANDARD/LEDGER_MODEL.md
• STANDARD/TRANSACTION_SEMANTICS.md
• STANDARD/ERROR_MODEL.md
• STANDARD/CRYPTO_AND_KEYS.md
• STANDARD/AUDIT_LOGGING.md
• STANDARD/REGISTRIES.md
• STANDARD/WIRE_FORMAT.md
• STANDARD/SECURITY_MODEL.md
• STANDARD/THREAT_MODEL.md
• STANDARD/GOVERNANCE_NEUTRALITY.md
• STANDARD/API_CONTRACT.md
• STANDARD/OBSERVABILITY.md
• STANDARD/COMPATIBILITY.md

Non-normative guidance is kept in STANDARD/ENGINEERING_MANIFESTO.md and the implementation documentation under docs/.