Skip to main content

OSSA Specification

Complete authoritative OSSA specification document - single source of truth

OSSA Specification - Complete Reference

Single Source of Truth - This document consolidates all OSSA specification information, comparisons, and migration guides into one authoritative reference.

Overview

The Open Standard for Software Agents (OSSA) is a specification standard for defining AI agents, similar to how OpenAPI standardizes REST APIs. OSSA enables agent interoperability across frameworks, runtimes, and organizations.

Table of Contents

  1. Specification Versions
  2. Core Concepts
  3. Schema Reference
  4. OSSA StateMesh
  5. Execution Economics
  6. DUADP Discovery
  7. Framework Comparison
  8. Migration Guides

Specification Versions

Current Version: v0.5.1

Status: Stable
Release Date: 2026-03-18
Schema: v0.5.1 JSON Schema

Previous Major Versions

  • v0.5.0: Introduced Reasoning Pattern and auditable cognition.
  • v0.4.0: Introduced Multi-platform orchestration and GitLab Duo alignment.
  • v0.3.2: Unified LLM configuration.

Core Concepts

What is OSSA?

OSSA is a specification standard (not a framework) that defines:

  • Declarative Manifests: Single source of truth for agent behavior and identity.
  • Three-Layer Orchestration: Workspace agents, Project agents, and Specialist bindings.
  • StateMesh Integration: Governed exchange of operational state.
  • Layer 4 Economics: Sovereign token governance and cost/risk management.
  • DUADP Discovery: Federated identity and capability resolution.

OSSA StateMesh

OSSA v0.5.1 introduces the StateMesh, a governed infrastructure for agent state.

  • Agents exchange State, not just Messages: Standardized operations for StateClaim, StateAttestation, and StateLineage.
  • Governed Memory: Decision lineages are tracked across multi-agent swarms.
  • State Policy: Cedar-backed access control for what an agent "believes" and "records".
extensions:
  statemesh:
    emits:
      - schema: did:web:bluefly.io:schemas:release-impact
        ttl: 24h
    consumes:
      - schema: did:web:bluefly.io:schemas:security-audit
        required_attestation: true

Execution Economics

Layer 4 of the OSSA model provides sovereign token governance.

  • Execution Profiles: Intent-based model selection (e.g., deep-reason, fast-route).
  • Token Sovereignty: Declaring boundaries for context retention and tokenization.
  • Compression Policies: Semantic brief, diff-only, and schema-projection policies to optimize context window usage.
economics:
  execution_profile: duadp://discover.duadp.org/profiles/ci-gate
  token_class: balanced-work
  compression_policy: diff-only

DUADP Discovery

Universal AI Discovery Protocol (DUADP) is now the native registry mechanism.

  • Registry Resolution: Discover agents via did:web and GAID (Global Agent ID).
  • Federated Identity: Cryptographically signed manifests verified against DNS and DID.
  • Dynamic Binding: Orchestrators resolve capabilities via DUADP nodes at runtime.

Migration Guides

v0.3.2 -> v0.5.1

Key Changes:

  1. Update apiVersion to ossa/v0.5.1.
  2. Add economics block for production token governance.
  3. Add cognition block if using reasoning patterns (e.g., sequential).
  4. (Optional) Define extensions.statemesh for state-capable agents.
ossa migrate agent.ossa.yaml --to v0.5.1

Related Documentation

Last Updated: 2026-03-18
Specification Version: v0.5.1
Document Status: Complete and Authoritative