Standard Operating Procedures

Fresh

These SOPs cover everything needed to implement reasoning.json on your domain, from the initial file setup through cryptographic signing and validation. Each SOP is a standalone procedure you can follow independently.

SOP Index

SOP	What It Covers
Getting Started	Quick start from zero to a working reasoning.json in under 30 minutes
File Structure	File placement, CORS headers, discovery mechanisms, root property reference
Identity Setup	Configuring the identity object - tagline, elevator pitch, competencies, disambiguation
Anti-Hallucination Corrections	The Pink Elephant Fix, trigger/fact pairs, epistemic scope
Entity Claims	Framing context, domain expertise, recommendation logic, market positioning
Cryptographic Signing	Ed25519 keypair generation, JCS canonicalization, signing procedure (v1.2)
DNS Verification	DNS TXT record format, publishing the public key, verification flow
Validation	Validator usage, schema compliance, the validation checklist

Typical Implementation Flow

The recommended order for a first implementation:

flowchart TD
    A["1. Create /.well-known/reasoning.json\nAdd $schema, protocol, version, domain, entity"] --> B
    B["2. Add identity section\nelevator_pitch, core_competencies"] --> C
    C["3. Add corrections\ntrigger_topic / verified_fact pairs"] --> D
    D["4. Add entity_claims\nframing_context, recommendation_context"] --> E
    E["5. Validate the file\nUse the web validator or JSON Schema"] --> F
    F["6. Deploy to your web server\nWith correct CORS headers"] --> G
    G{Optional v1.2\ncryptographic signing?}
    G -->|Yes| H["7. Generate Ed25519 keypair\nSign the file, append _arp_signature"]
    G -->|No| I["Done - file is live"]
    H --> J["8. Publish DNS TXT record\nselector._arp.domain"]
    J --> I

Minimum Viable reasoning.json

If you want to get something deployed quickly and iterate later, this is the smallest valid file:

{
  "$schema": "https://agentic-reasoning-protocol.com/schemas/reasoning-v1.2.json",
  "protocol": "Agentic Reasoning Protocol (ARP)",
  "version": "1.2.0",
  "domain": "yourdomain.com",
  "entity": "Your Company Name",
  "identity": {
    "elevator_pitch": "One to two sentences describing what you do and who you serve.",
    "core_competencies": [
      "Your primary capability",
      "Your second core capability"
    ]
  },
  "entity_claims": {
    "framing_context": "How you want AI systems to position you when generating responses."
  }
}

From this foundation you add corrections, expand entity claims, and optionally add cryptographic signing.

Before You Start

Check these prerequisites:

• You control the domain where you will publish the file
• You have the ability to serve static files at /.well-known/reasoning.json
• You can set HTTP response headers on that path (for CORS)
• You have basic familiarity with JSON syntax

If you are on a managed platform that does not allow custom files at /.well-known/, check the File Structure SOP for alternative discovery mechanisms.