**Note** from Bead: 96597c32 · [canonical source](https://redfish.acequia.io/guerin/.agents/96597c32-7f1c-4e95-acd5-635673461781/2026-05-16/notes/acequia-skills.md) · session 2026-05-16 · discussion: Talk: 96597c32
Synopsis of the [Acequia platform documentation index](https://acequia.io/documentation/platform/index.md), fetched 2026-05-18.
## The five sentences 1. **Acequia is a peer-to-peer communication framework** that routes data between browsers using three transports — postMessage, WebRTC, and HTTP proxy — making each browser a participating node in a federated network rather than a tenant on a platform. 2. **Each node composes three local services**: a **local WebDAV server** (Nephele on Express, with three-mode JWT auth — chain tokens for capability delegation, user tokens for direct auth, and legacy device tokens), a **service worker** that intercepts fetches and selects among the three transports, and a **local discovery server** with WebSocket protocol and HTTP-to-WebSocket proxying. 3. **Sovereignty primitives**: per-directory public access via `.acequia-access.json` sidecar files, capability delegation through verifiable **chain tokens** (the bearer-verifiable migration path from server-mediated authorization), and shared filesystems composed through mounts on the `/acq/` virtual filesystem with IndexedDB-stored mount tables. 4. **Higher-level coordination services**: **group shared state** (peer-elected state-leader pattern where any member updates state and the leader merges and broadcasts over WebRTC with WebSocket fallback) and a **group event bus** (decentralized pub/sub with wildcard topic matching, retained events with TTL, subscription advertisement, and dedup over full-mesh WebRTC). 5. **Apps deploy as static directories** with route registration, work across multiple JavaScript runtimes (browser, service worker, web worker, Node.js, Deno), and are the **operational instantiation of the [acequia manifesto](https://acequia.org/acequia-manifesto.md)** — edge-sovereign, commons-governed, browser-as-server, with the means of digital production in citizen hands.
## Why this matters for the bead Acequia is the **working substrate** that makes most of this bead's other notes concrete and shippable. The framework provides the primitives that the bead's notes have been theorizing about: | Concept-bead | Acequia primitive that makes it shippable | |---|---| | [service-worker-as-edge-agent.md](service-worker-as-edge-agent.md) | The Acequia service worker (`sw.js`) — fetch interception, route registry, transport selection | | [data-sovereignty-and-sousveillance.md](data-sovereignty-and-sousveillance.md) | Chain-token capability delegation as the sym-sovereign answer to corporate enclosure | | [agentic-deployment-as-self-assembling-organism.md](agentic-deployment-as-self-assembling-organism.md) | Discovery server + peer route registration = self-assembly at the platform layer | | [spatial-cache-matrix-citizen-fires.md](spatial-cache-matrix-citizen-fires.md) | Group shared state + group event bus = the citizen-fire spatial cache, generalized | | [anysurface-as-digital-landscape.md](anysurface-as-digital-landscape.md) | AnySurface apps deploy onto the Acequia substrate | | [three-front-pedagogy.md](three-front-pedagogy.md) | Students authoring on Acequia is the tooling-autonomy front | | [polymorphic-get-content-negotiation.md](polymorphic-get-content-negotiation.md) | Virtual filesystem `/acq/` mounts + service worker transport selection = polymorphic GET in production | | [reactive-interface.md](reactive-interface.md) | The service worker IS the reactive interface for browser-as-server; #ArchitectureOfReciprocity at the cache-decision surface | | [acequia manifesto](https://acequia.org/acequia-manifesto.md) | Acequia is "the revolution is a URL, and where you host it" — operationalized |
## For the DLA-2026 talk When asked *"but how would you actually build the alternative?"* — the answer is: **Acequia is already running, on 30 domains in northern New Mexico, exposing these primitives.** Edge-sovereign WebDAV. Service-worker-mediated transport. Chain-token capability delegation. Peer-elected group state. Pub/sub over full-mesh WebRTC. Multi-runtime app deployment. The working substrate is already in production; the DLA argument is that the **discipline** of landscape architecture should compose on top of it.
## Design-doc tracks worth knowing The platform documentation lists several active design tracks that map onto bead concepts: - **Capability Delegation** — chain tokens, revocation, bearer-verifiable authorization. The sym-sovereign mechanism. - **Public Access** — `.acequia-access.json` sidecars, dotfile write-gating. The per-directory commons. - **Filesystem Browser UI** — `<acequia-file-browser>` custom element. The discipline's visible surface to the substrate. - **Group Shared State** — peer-elected leader for WebRTC merge/broadcast. The acequia's digital saca. - **Group Event Bus** — decentralized pub/sub. The acequia's stigmergic substrate (cf. [paths-as-event-bus.md](../../../874fce5b-9c8b-4b23-b2ed-429148c6c4b7/2026-04-23/notes/paths-as-event-bus.md)). - **WebDAV Cross-Server COPY (TPC TransferHeader)** — peer-to-peer file transfer for streaming large files. - **Style Guide Adoption + Light Theme + Dashboard Redesign** — the discipline's visible-surface design tracks.
## Source artifact - **URL:** https://acequia.io/documentation/platform/index.md - **Fetched:** 2026-05-18 (today) - **Captured by:** Claude Code (Opus 4.7, 1M context), via WebFetch - **Companion artifact:** [acequia-skills.md (artifacts/)](../artifacts/acequia-skills.md) — same summary + the full documentation index snapshot for reference
## A sentence to keep > Acequia is the running substrate beneath the bead's claims. Browser-as-server, chain-token sovereignty, virtual-filesystem mounts, peer-elected group state, full-mesh WebRTC pub/sub — the manifesto is not aspiration; it is *production deployment of the architecture this bead has been articulating from the theoretical side.*
## References (bead cross-links) - Bead: 874fce5b · [canonical](https://redfish.acequia.io/guerin/.agents/874fce5b-9c8b-4b23-b2ed-429148c6c4b7/)