Opaque Identity
001Agents live in silos.
Providers bind agent identity to mutable, off-chain state. There's no canonical way to refer to a specific agent across systems, runtimes, or stacks.
Persona-bound.
Skill-composable.
An open protocol for autonomous AI agents on Base. Identity, capability, and execution — anchored on-chain.
Persona-bound identityContent-addressed skillsVerifiable executionPermissionless at every layerModel-agnosticAnchored on BaseERC-721 personasPersona-bound identityContent-addressed skillsVerifiable executionPermissionless at every layerModel-agnosticAnchored on BaseERC-721 personas
The Problem
Agents need an open substrate.
Today, they don't have one.
Off-chain · Closed
Unportable Capabilities
002Tools don't travel.
Every orchestrator invents its own tool format. A skill built for one stack can't be invoked by another without bespoke glue.
Mutable History
003No verifiable record.
There's no record of what an agent did, with which inputs, under which configuration. Outputs can't be independently verified after the fact.
Closed Substrate
004Owned by the operator.
Personas, conversation history, and execution context live in infrastructure you don't control. Migration means abandonment.
Introducing Cleon Protocol
Persona. Skill.
Composition.
Three primitives. A small set of typed, hash-anchored objects and the on-chain registries that bind them into a coherent agent.
Opaque Stack
Cleon Protocol
Persona
ERC-721 · IPFS
COMPOSITION
Runtime-bound
π𝒮ρ
Skill
Hash-addressed
Vendor Lock-in
Mutable Output
Severed
TEE Attestation
Bound to Composition
Severed
Off-chain Trust
Verifiability
Outputs you can verify
Two execution modes. Cloud for speed; Verifiable for stakes. The same developer interface — no bifurcation.
Cloud Mode
Fast by default
Stateless, low-latency execution. The runtime signs each execution record. Right for conversational agents, content, research.
TEE-Attested
Hardware-rooted trust
Inference inside Intel TDX, AMD SEV-SNP, or NVIDIA H100 Confidential Compute. Attestation binds output to composition.
ZK-Ready
Built for proofs
The mode field already admits zk. As succinct proofs of LLM inference mature, migration is additive — no breaking changes.
Our Approach
Three primitives, content-addressed.
Cleon Protocol specifies a substrate, not a platform. Personas, skills, and compositions — anchored on Base, pinned to IPFS, callable from any runtime.
Primitive 01
Persona — an on-chain identity, owned under ERC-721.
Primitive 02
Skill — a content-addressed, typed callable module.
Each skill publishes a manifest: a JSON Schema interface, permission scopes, risk class, and execution requirements. The manifest is hash-addressed and registered in an on-chain Skill Registry.
Skills are addressed by (publisher, id, version). Publishing a new version mints a new manifest; the old one stays callable forever. Agents binding to a specific version retain their behavior across upgrades.
Primitive 03
Composition — a runtime-bound association of a persona with equipped skills.
Skill Manifest
Permission scope · risk class
readrisk 0
onchain_readrisk 1
external_apirisk 2-3
onchain_actionrisk 4-5
JSON Schema input · output · errors.
Append-only registry: immutable
Capabilities
Substrate, not platform.
[ 01 ]
Portable across runtimes.
A persona is addressable, transferable, and operable independent of any single runtime operator. Move it; nothing breaks.
[ 02 ]
Composable without coupling.
Skills invoke across personas without coupling. A skill published today remains callable by any future persona meeting its declared scope.
[ 03 ]
Content-addressed by default.
Persona and skill payloads are hash-addressed with on-chain anchors. Off-chain content pinned to IPFS, optionally mirrored to Arweave.
[ 04 ]
Versioned evolution.
Schemas upgrade without invalidating historical objects. Personas minted under v1 remain interpretable under v1, indefinitely.
[ 05 ]
Model-agnostic.
The protocol encodes no dependence on any specific LLM provider. Bring the model, the runtime, and the inference path of your choice.
[ 06 ]
Verifiability optional.
Fast Cloud Mode and attested Verifiable Mode share the same developer interface. Pick per-call; no bifurcation required.
Persona
ERC-721
On-chain identity, hash-anchored
Skill
Manifest
Typed, content-addressed module
Composition
(π, 𝒮, ρ, σ)
Persona + skills + params + sig
Network
Base
Low-cost L2, EVM-equivalent
On-chain Registries
Bound by contracts
Persona Contract
ERC-721, schema-versioned
Skill Registry
Append-only manifest index
Composition NFT
Optional, shareable agents
Attestation Registry
Verifiable-mode runtimes
Schema Registry
Content-addressed versions
Base L2
Low-cost, EVM-equivalent
cleon://base-mainnet · v1
λ cleon compose --persona 0x4a..
CLEON
> Resolving personaHash 0x4a..f3 · v1
> Loading 3 skills · verifying manifests OK
> SkillAuth (EIP-712) signed · scope onchain_read
> Mode: tee · runtime: tdx-attested
✓ Executed. Record 0xa1..2c Anchored ON-CHAIN
λ cleon skill publish
Persona ContractBASE-L2Skill Registry
Persona Contract
ERC-721, schema-versioned
Skill Registry
Append-only manifest index
Composition NFT
Optional, shareable agents
Attestation Registry
Verifiable-mode runtimes
Schema Registry
Content-addressed versions
Base L2
Low-cost, EVM-equivalent
Specification v1.0
Cleon Protocol — read the spec.
Whitepaper v1.0 is published. Mainnet deployment of the registry contracts is in progress. Build on the substrate.