Normative definitions of terms used in the Daena Protocol specification. Terms appear in italics throughout SPEC.md on first use.
Agent A piece of software that consumes Daena documents on behalf of a human user. An agent reads facts, invokes capabilities, and MAY render a human view.
Agent layer The canonical, machine-native layer of the Daena Protocol. The agent layer consists of Daena documents served by publishers and consumed by agents.
Asha Avestan: cosmic truth and order. Used informally in Daena documentation to refer to the verified, signed state the protocol enforces. The opposite of Druj.
Capability An action a publisher offers to agents: a named operation with typed parameters, optional authentication requirements, and an optional price. Capabilities are how agents do things, not just read them.
Daena document A structured, signed, JSON-encoded object containing a publisher's facts, capabilities, and render hints, served at a known location under a publisher identity. The atomic unit of publication in the Daena Protocol.
DPIP Daena Protocol Improvement Proposal. The formal mechanism by which substantive changes to the specification are proposed, discussed, and accepted. See GOVERNANCE.md.
Druj Avestan: the lie. Used informally in Daena documentation to refer to unverified, hallucinated, or contradicted information. The opposite of Asha.
Fact A typed, dated, signed statement made by a publisher about a subject. Facts are the atomic units of the agent layer.
Human layer The optional, derived layer of the Daena Protocol. The human layer consists of human views generated from Daena documents using render hints.
Human view A rendering of a Daena document intended for human consumption — typically HTML, but optionally voice, plain text, or any other modality.
Publisher An entity that publishes a Daena document under a verifiable publisher identity.
Publisher identity A Decentralized Identifier (DID) under which a publisher signs facts and offers capabilities. The cryptographic basis of trust in the Daena Protocol.
Render hint Optional metadata in a Daena document that guides how a renderer should generate a human view. Render hints MUST NOT affect the semantic meaning of facts or capabilities.
Renderer Software that takes a Daena document and produces a human view.
Signature A cryptographic attestation by a publisher over a fact, capability, or Daena document, allowing any party to verify that the publisher made the claim and that it has not been altered.
Verb A protocol-level operation defined by the Daena Protocol: QUERY, ACT, SUBSCRIBE, or VERIFY. See SPEC.md §6.
Verifier Software that validates signatures in a Daena document, confirming that the facts and capabilities were genuinely authored by the claimed publisher and have not been tampered with.
This glossary is part of the Daena Protocol specification and is licensed under CC-BY-4.0.