Corrigibility Schema Protocol

Machine-readable standards for evaluating whether public digital infrastructure can be corrected, contested, and controlled by the communities it serves.

Downloads

Asset	Description
dpi-infrastructure.json	DPI operator manifest
dpi-audit.json	DPI assessment
epi-infrastructure.json	EPI LWD-R manifest
epi-audit.json	EPI assessment

Overview

This protocol defines schemas for:

• DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) — identity, payments, data systems
• EPI (Epistemic Public Infrastructure) — AI/ML systems in public services

Two independent documents per system:

1. infrastructure.json — Operator's declaration of system structure
2. audit.json — Independent auditor's verification

The Five Tests

A system is corrigible only if it passes ALL five tests:

Test	Question
EXIT	Can users leave without penalty?
CODE	Is the source code inspectable?
AUDIT	Can independent parties verify claims?
GOVERN	Do affected communities have binding input?
FORK	Can the system be replicated independently?

Failure of ANY test = Structurally Incorrigible

Quick Start

For Operators

1. Create infrastructure.json using schema
2. Declare your corrigibility claims
3. Sign with your organization's key
4. Publish at /.well-known/corrigibility/infrastructure.json

For Auditors

1. Fetch and hash operator's manifest
2. Conduct independent verification
3. Create audit.json with results
4. Sign and publish

For Evaluators

See docs/llm-instructions.md for machine reasoning protocol.

For Agents

Both protocol roles may be operated by agents. AGENTS.md states the invariants: record-borne origination (role_execution), answerability terminating at a sanctionable party, fresh grants, and, for auditors, checker independence in operator and in substrate.

The schemas are the interface; the papers are the specification. docs/failure-modes.md indexes common operator evasion patterns against the tests they degrade and the fields that catch them. Hand-written assessment rule files from the 3.0 era are preserved under archive/skills-v3-era/.

Tiered Adoption (EPI)

Tier	Use Case	Requirements
trivial	Translation, summarization	Action boundaries, closed APIs permitted
decision_support	Search, RAG over govt data	Open weights, local data storage
high_stakes	Policing, welfare, courts	Full verified LWD-R, accountable-authority checkpoint

Tools

# Install runtime deps
pip install 'jsonschema[format]>=4.18' referencing jcs

# Validate a manifest (auto-detects DPI/EPI × infrastructure/audit)
python tools/validate.py path/to/infrastructure.json

# RFC 8785 SHA-256 hash for chaining/anchoring
python tools/hash.py path/to/infrastructure.json

# RFC 8785 canonical bytes for signing
python tools/canonicalize.py path/to/infrastructure.json

Protocol Version

Current: 3.1 (July 2026 paper alignment — see CHANGELOG.md; 3.0 documents remain valid).

Schemas anchor every field to a specific paper section. Canonicalisation is RFC 8785 (JCS), signatures are Ed25519 over a W3C DID-resolved key, and binding-authority claims (Rule A.9) are enforced structurally via JSON Schema conditionals.

See PROTOCOL.md for versioning rules.

Related

Resource	Link
Papers	corrigibility-framework
Website	anivar.net/corrigibility

License

CC0 1.0 (Public Domain)

Author

Anivar A Aravind · ORCID: 0009-0009-8995-0005