The Federation Leviathan. Coordination layer for the Leviathan Protocol: kernel substrate, federation constitution, member instance registry, and governance contracts.
Leviathan is a constitutional governance protocol for AI agents and organizations. It is not a single project — it is a federation of instances, each running its own constitution that inherits from a shared kernel.
This repository (leviathan-protocol/meta) is itself a Leviathan instance — the Federation Leviathan. It has its own constitution (federation/), its own membership rules, its own amendment procedure. It coordinates other instances without controlling them.
What lives here:
- The canonical kernel (abstract substrate) →
kernel/ - The federation's own constitution →
federation/(terms, principles, rules, meta-rules) - The canonical constitution editing surface for the on-chain ConstitutionalRegistry →
constitution/ - Master governance contracts →
contracts/ - Federation tooling →
tools/ - Templates for new instances joining →
templates/ - Schemas for federation messaging →
schemas/
What does NOT live here:
- Implementation code — instance code lives in instance-specific repositories
- Founder personal data or POS information — strictly private, never in any public repo
- Operational manifests with sensitive details (trading strategies, internal machine paths, investor relationships) — these belong to private federation tracking
- A public website — that's
leviathan.life
TIER 1: Federation manifest ← here, in meta/<instance>/
• Public-appropriate "this instance exists, is part of federation"
• Pointer to TIER 2 (constitution repo)
TIER 2: Instance constitution ← separate repo, leviathan-protocol/<instance>
• Specialized Leviathan's constitution (principles, rules, terms)
• Federation membership manifest
• Pointer to TIER 3 (implementation)
TIER 3: Implementation code ← separate repo, can be private
• Actual app/service/contract code
• Constitution-bound but not constitutional itself
A Leviathan instance can be partial — TIER 2 without TIER 3 yet (constitution drafted, not yet implemented), or TIER 1 without TIER 2 yet (federation member, constitution not crystallized).
The federation currently has these public-facing member instances:
| Instance | Role | Repository | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Companion | Layer 1 — personal POS governance pattern | (private — personal instance) | Operational |
| Anima | Layer 3 — mobile POS, on-device sovereignty | TBD | Active development (Flutter native migration) |
| Animal Welfare | First specialized Leviathan | leviathan-protocol/animal-welfare |
Genesis (constitution being authored) |
| Tribün | Sports/fandom community governance | TBD | Planned |
| Security | Validator federation auditor | TBD | Planned |
Additional internal/operational instances are tracked privately in the founder's federation backup; they may join public federation when their public manifests are ready.
Per constitution/README.md, constitutional elements (principles, rules, terms, shadows, references) are:
- Authored here in
constitution/as Markdown + YAML frontmatter files - Compiled to ratification calldata via
tools/ - Ratified on-chain via
ConstitutionalRegistry.sol(deployed on Leviathan L1) - Canonical state lives on-chain, not in this repo
The repo is the editing surface; the chain is the canonical record. This separation allows large editorial content and version history to live in chain while the repo stays a readable editing experience.
See docs/element-format.md for the file format spec, and docs/architecture-overview.md for how every layer of the federation relates.
Leviathan operates on two distinct governance layers:
Changes to the reference implementation repos (this one, node, ui, sub-leviathans, etc.) follow an RFC-style process documented in this repo's decisions/ folder via Architectural Decision Records (ADRs). Founder is the sovereign authority during bootstrap; this may evolve toward a community-elected developer council as the project matures.
The Leviathan Protocol itself — once fully deployed — is governed on-chain via the ConstitutionalRegistry contract, validator network, and forum-based proposals.
These are deliberately separate to avoid infinite recursion (you cannot govern your own bootstrap with the thing you're bootstrapping). Mirrors Bitcoin Core (BIP process) + Bitcoin protocol, or Ethereum (EIPs) + Ethereum protocol patterns.
- Read the kernel —
kernel/describes the abstract substrate every Leviathan instance must satisfy - Read the federation constitution —
federation/describes how this Federation Leviathan governs itself - Read
leviathan-protocol/meta— the coordination repo with current ADRs, phase plans, and active decisions - Propose changes via PRs to relevant files, following the editorial separator pattern (constitutional content above
<hr>, editorial below) - For specialized Leviathans — propose a new TIER 2 repo via PR to
templates/
CC BY-SA 4.0 (or compatible). Fork freedom is built into the protocol itself — see federation/principles.md.
leviathan-protocol/meta— Cross-repo coordination, ADRs, phase plans, status dashboardleviathan-protocol/animal-welfare— First specialized Leviathan instanceleviathan-protocol/node— Smart contracts + validator daemon (coming)leviathan-protocol/ui— Site + forum (coming)
Website: leviathan.life