Slipstream Protocol Reference Skill

Slipstream Protocol Reference

Overview

Slipstream (SLIP) is a semantic quantization protocol for efficient multi-agent coordination. Instead of transmitting verbose natural language, agents communicate via compact references to a shared semantic codebook (UCR).

Key benefit: 70-80% token reduction vs JSON-wrapped messages.

Wire Format

SLIP v1 <src> <dst> <anchor> [payload...]

SLIP v1 - Protocol marker and version
<src> - Source agent identifier
<dst> - Destination agent identifier
<anchor> - UCR semantic anchor (the intent)
[payload...] - Optional unquantizable content

Core Anchors (UCR v1.0)

Requests

| Anchor | Description | |--------|-------------| | RequestTask | Ask agent to do something | | RequestPlan | Ask for a plan | | RequestReview | Ask for code/plan review | | RequestHelp | Ask for assistance | | RequestCancel | Request cancellation | | RequestResource | Request resource allocation |

Information

| Anchor | Description | |--------|-------------| | InformComplete | Report task completion | | InformProgress | Share progress update | | InformBlocked | Report being blocked | | InformStatus | General status update | | InformResult | Share computed result |

Proposals

| Anchor | Description | |--------|-------------| | ProposePlan | Suggest a plan | | ProposeChange | Suggest a modification | | ProposeAlternative | Suggest alternative approach | | ProposeRollback | Suggest reverting changes |

Evaluations

| Anchor | Description | |--------|-------------| | EvalApprove | Approve/accept something | | EvalReject | Reject something | | EvalNeedsWork | Request revisions | | EvalComplete | Mark as complete |

Meta/Control

| Anchor | Description | |--------|-------------| | Accept | Accept a proposal/request | | Reject | Decline a proposal/request | | MetaAck | Acknowledge receipt | | MetaHandoff | Hand off responsibility | | MetaEscalate | Escalate issue | | Fallback | Unquantizable (see payload) |

Examples

# Simple request
SLIP v1 alice bob RequestReview

# With payload
SLIP v1 planner executor RequestTask implement_auth_module

# Report completion
SLIP v1 developer team InformComplete user_service

# Approve with note
SLIP v1 reviewer author EvalApprove lgtm

# Fallback for complex content
SLIP v1 devops sre Fallback check kubernetes pods for OOMKilled

Python Usage

from slipcore import slip, decode, quantize, think_quantize_transmit

# Create message directly
wire = slip("alice", "bob", "RequestReview")
# -> "SLIP v1 alice bob RequestReview"

# Think-Quantize-Transmit pattern
wire = think_quantize_transmit(
    "Please check the auth code for security issues",
    src="dev", dst="reviewer"
)
# -> "SLIP v1 dev reviewer RequestReview"

# Decode
msg = decode(wire)
print(msg.anchor.canonical)  # "Request review of work"

UCR Semantic Manifold

Each anchor is a position in a 4-dimensional semantic space:

| Dimension | Range | Meaning | |-----------|-------|---------| | ACTION | 0-7 | observe, inform, ask, request, propose, commit, evaluate, meta | | POLARITY | 0-7 | negative to positive valence | | DOMAIN | 0-7 | task, plan, observation, evaluation, control, resource, error, general | | URGENCY | 0-7 | background to critical |

Extension Layer

Core anchors: 0x0000-0x7FFF (standard, immutable) Extension anchors: 0x8000-0xFFFF (installation-specific)

from slipcore import ExtensionManager

manager = ExtensionManager()
anchor = manager.add_extension(
    canonical="Request Kubernetes scaling",
    mnemonic="RequestK8sScale",
)

Design Principles

No special characters - Avoids BPE fragmentation
Space-separated - Clean tokenization
CamelCase anchors - Often single tokens
Semantic not syntactic - Meaning over compression

Agent Skills: Slipstream Protocol Reference

Skill Files