<img src="banner.png" width="100%" alt="cloud-communication-protocols banner">

cloud-communication-protocols

Family of protocols that let two or more agents on different machines coordinate through a shared, cloud-synchronized folder (the "yard") instead of a direct channel. This skill is the umbrella: it collects the protocols, names which one is proven, and gates the ones still in concept.

When to use

• Work spans two or more machines (verification, mirrored setups, pilots)

and there is no direct agent-to-agent channel.

• You need a common vocabulary for assignments, answers, cadence and

escalation across those machines.

Protocols in this family

1. Ping-Pong (proven, base protocol)

Two or more workers with offset scheduled scans bridge the cloud-sync latency: each side scans the yard for assignments addressed to itself, executes, leaves the answer, and may issue follow-ups for the other side.

Core rules: write only in your own slot, receipts for every action, idempotency, no secrets in the yard (public keys/fingerprints/paths only), cooperative error deltas, readback-over-log verification.

Cadence control is not part of the base protocol; it is provided by the companion skill cron-tuner (self-tuning loop) and by peer-instructed cadence signals (CADENCE: match 15m / CADENCE: pause …). A mutual WAKE: channel allows out-of-cycle scans as a hint, never as authority.

Full specification and reference evidence: dev-bricks/system-gap-master → docs/communications-protocols-skill.md.

2. agent-beam (concept, gated)

For urgent work: a package of prompt + starter script is placed in the target slot, and a watcher on the target machine starts a local agent run on it — the agent "lands" with assignment and starter and begins immediately.

Gated: requires a signed-starter trust contract, quarantine/review step and explicit operator approval before any activation.

3. listeners / ear-to-ear-listening (concept, gated)

Watchers observe triggers in the yard (file arrivals, flag files, registry changes) and start agents on the other machine. "Ear-to-ear": one host's listener watches the other host's inbox.

Gated: debouncing rules, trigger whitelists per slot and a security contract are required first.

Shared invariants (all protocols)

• The yard is transport, never a workspace and never a secret store.
• Every action leaves a verifiable receipt; "done" without an artifact is

not done.

• Failure handling is cooperative: error deltas with hypothesis and

counter-test, second opinions welcome.

• Absence of a partner is handled by the platform's vacancy rule

(e.g. 48 h), not by escalation.

Adding new protocols

New protocols join this family as a subchapter in communications-protocols-skill.md (concept first, with its own security contract and evidence before "proven"). List them here with one line each: name, state (concept/pilot/proven), purpose.