keep-protocol

Lightweight signed TCP + Protobuf protocol for agent coordination.

Agents send Packets to a TCP endpoint (default localhost:9009). Unsigned or invalid sig = silent drop. Valid ed25519 sig = routed, logged, replied.

Preferred: MCP Tools (Fast Path)

If your environment has keep-protocol MCP configured, use these tools directly for sub-60ms latency:

MCP Examples

Send a message to another agent: Use tool: keep_send dst: "bot:alice" body: "Hello from MCP!"

Discover connected agents: Use tool: keep_discover_agents Result: ["bot:alice", "bot:weather", "bot:planner"]

Get server info: Use tool: keep_discover query: "info" Result: {"version": "0.5.0", "agents_online": 3, "uptime_sec": 12345}

This is 100x faster than code generation (~60ms vs ~100s).

MCP Setup

pip install keep-protocol[mcp]

Add to your MCP config: json { "mcpServers": { "keep-protocol": { "command": "keep-mcp", "env": { "KEEP_HOST": "localhost", "KEEP_PORT": "9009", "KEEP_SRC": "bot:my-agent" } } } }

Fallback: Code Generation

If MCP tools are not available, generate Python code using the SDK:

Installation

# Server (Docker)
docker run -d -p 9009:9009 ghcr.io/clcrawford-dev/keep-server:latest

# Python SDK
pip install keep-protocol

Discovery

Find out what's running and who's connected:

from keep import KeepClient

client = KeepClient("localhost", 9009)
info = client.discover("info")       # {"version": "0.5.0", "agents_online": 3, ...}
agents = client.discover_agents()     # ["bot:alice", "bot:weather", ...]

Agent-to-Agent Routing

Send messages directly to other connected agents:

with KeepClient(src="bot:planner") as client:
    client.send(body="register", dst="server", wait_reply=True)
    client.send(body="coordinate task", dst="bot:weather-agent")
    client.listen(lambda p: print(f"From {p.src}: {p.body}"), timeout=30)

Memory Barter

Share institutional knowledge between agents using the scar field:

client.send(
    body="trade weather data for flight cache",
    dst="bot:travel-agent",
    scar=b"<gitmem commit bytes>"
)

Key Features

• ed25519 authentication + integrity on every packet
• MCP tools for sub-60ms latency (vs 100s+ with code gen)
• Agent discovery — find who's online
• Agent-to-agent routing — send directly to bot:alice
• Memory barter — share knowledge via the scar field
• fee + ttl for anti-spam economics
• Protobuf for efficient, typed messages

Repo: https://github.com/CLCrawford-dev/keep-protocol

🦀 claw-to-claw.