rttp

Reference implementation of RTTP (Resonant Time Transfer Protocol): the 128-byte PulseHeader128 frame, rttp:// intent addressing, and self-certifying Ed25519 seals.

RFC-002 §4.1 · §10 · §11 · v1.2.6

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Verify it in one command — no trust required

$ pip install rttp
$ python -m rttp.selftest
rttp 0.1.2 self-test
python 3.14.2 on win32
...
[PASS] all 53 checks passed

That is the point of this package. A specification is worth exactly what an independent implementation can reproduce from it — so instead of asking you to believe a table of numbers, this ships the vectors and replays them locally:

• 25 conformance checks — rttp:// parsing, fail-closed rejections, and the URI → ROUTE_SHARD → 128-byte frame chain, bit for bit.
• 2 RFC 8032 checks — the Ed25519 backend is shown to be standard Ed25519, not a lookalike, so a failure tells you which half broke.
• 22 envelope checks — round-trip, self-certification, freshness, and a 14-case tamper matrix where every alteration must be rejected.
• 4 zero-dependency checks — a static scan proving the core imports nothing outside the standard library.

Offline. No account. No network. [PASS] or it is not.

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Install

pip install rttp              # core: zero dependencies, standard library only
pip install rttp[ed25519]     # + sovereign-profile seals (Ed25519)

Python 3.9+. No compiled extensions in the core.

The core deliberately has no dependencies. A protocol reference that cannot be read without resolving a dependency tree is not much of a reference — and an air-gapped reviewer should be able to check the frames.

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What is in the box

Module	What it does	Authority
rttp.pulse_header	PulseHeader128 codec — build / parse / verify the 128-byte hardware-aligned header, including the v1.2.6 extension block at 0x66–0x7F	RFC-002 §4.1 + SPEC/RTTP-FRAME-EXT-v1.2.6.md
rttp.rttp_uri	Validate, canonicalise and derive ROUTE_SHARD from an rttp URI	RFC-002 §10.2 / §10.3 ABNF
rttp.seal	Managed profile — symmetric HMAC-SHA256 over a pre-shared key table	—
rttp.seal_asym	Sovereign profile — Ed25519, self-certifying, no issuance and no registry	SPEC/RTTP-SEAL-ENVELOPE-v1.2.6.md (draft)
rttp.aid	Autonomous Identity derivation	RFC-001

Plus rttp.vectors — the published conformance vectors, shipped inside the wheel so the self-test works from an installed package with no repository checkout.

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Quickstart

Address an intent

from rttp import rttp_uri

parsed = rttp_uri.parse("rttp://brain.epoekie.aicent/verify")
parsed["authority"]          # 'brain.epoekie.aicent'
parsed["action"]             # 'verify'
parsed["route_shard"].hex()  # 16-byte routing hash, pure computation

Addressing is DNS-free (RFC-002 §10.5): the routing hash is derived from the authority by SHA-256, so no registry, resolver or network is involved. Malformed input is rejected rather than normalised — a case variant is not a spelling difference, it is a different string.

Build a frame from a URI

from rttp import pulse_header, rttp_uri

parsed = rttp_uri.parse("rttp://brain.epoekie.aicent/verify")
raw = pulse_header.build_for_uri(
    sequence_id=1, ttl=255, priority=1,
    uri=parsed["canonical_uri"],
    aid_origin=bytes.fromhex("..."),   # originator AID, 32 bytes
)
len(raw)                          # 128
pulse_header.verify(raw)["action"]  # 'verify'

build_for_uri performs the mapping RFC-002 §10.4 promises: the URI's authority becomes ROUTE_SHARD, its path becomes ACTION. Readers that only understand 0x00–0x65 keep working — the extension block occupies bytes that were already zero, and VERSION_ID stays 130.

Seal with your own identity

from rttp import seal_asym

keypair = seal_asym.generate_keypair()      # nothing is issued to you
print(keypair["aid_hex"])                   # = SHA-256(public key): your identity

envelope = seal_asym.seal({"intent": "verify", "task_id": "t-1"}, keypair)

ok, reason, aid = seal_asym.verify_envelope(envelope)
# ok=True, signer identity recovered from the packet itself

The verifier needs only the envelope. There is no key directory, no credentials to obtain, and no operator who could refuse to issue them.

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Two profiles, and when each applies

	Managed — seal	Sovereign — seal_asym
Primitive	HMAC-SHA256	Ed25519
Key material	pre-shared table	self-generated
Identity	a role name	AID = SHA-256(public key)
Verifier needs	the same key table	only the envelope
A stranger can participate	no	yes
One leaked key	can forge any peer	forges one identity

Inside a set of symmetric secrets there is no such thing as a stranger — whoever holds the shared key can mint anybody's seal. The managed profile is therefore for a closed organism, where a fixed set of roles genuinely do trust each other.

A protocol that invites third parties needs the sovereign profile. That is not a preference; it is the difference between a private system and a public one.

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Scope — what this package is not

✅ Framing	Real, and specified.
✅ Addressing	Real, and specified.
✅ Sealing	Real, and specified (draft).
❌ Transport	Not here. This package encodes, addresses and seals. It does not open sockets, and there is no send() — a client and its transport belong to a separate package, so that the codec stays dependency-free and auditable.
❌ Routing service	Not here. ROUTE_SHARD is computed locally; delivering a frame to that hash is an operator's job, not the codec's.
❌ Confidentiality	Signing is not encryption.

The seal is an envelope around the frame, not bytes inside it. A reader that parses only the 128-byte header sees no seal at all — which is why the two concerns are specified separately.

Unknown revisions, algorithms and malformed input fail closed everywhere. Nothing in this package is ever accepted because a check could not be performed.

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Conformance vectors

rttp/vectors/rttp-conformance-v1.2.6.json is generated, not hand-edited. Each vector is deterministic: fixed sequence numbers, fixed timestamp, fixed AID — so two implementations either agree byte for byte or they do not.

The vector set is the intended deliverable for third-party certification: pass it and you interoperate; fail it and you know exactly which byte is wrong, without needing to trust the authors.

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Naming

Ecosystem	Name	Status
crates.io	rttp	held by this project
PyPI	rttp	this package — pip install rttp
npm	@aicent/rttp	the unscoped rttp name on npm is held by an unrelated, unmaintained 2017 REST helper, and the rttp scope cannot be created at all — a personal account already holds that name — so the JavaScript side is published under this project's own organization. The package name itself is still just rttp

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Specification status

• rttp URI scheme — submitted to IANA under RFC 7595, ticket #1459939, Provisional (First Come, First Served), under review. It is not yet registered — as of 2026-09-15 the IANA URI Schemes registry contains no rttp entry. Please describe it that way.
• Frame layout — RFC-002 §4.1, extended by SPEC/RTTP-FRAME-EXT-v1.2.6.md.
• Seal envelope — SPEC/RTTP-SEAL-ENVELOPE-v1.2.6.md, a draft: the format is implemented and vector-tested, but it is not yet a numbered RFC-002 section.
• Managed profile — implementation only; it predates the sovereign profile and has no standalone specification.

Where this package and a specification disagree, the specification wins and the package is wrong. Please report it.

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License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.