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kip-sdk — memory substrate (SPEC / DESIGN ONLY)

**Package:** no published package (spec-only) · **Path:** packages/kip-sdk · **Maturity:** Spec only — **not implemented**

**This is the most important thing to know about kip-sdk:** it is **spec/design only**. The package is **entirely Markdown** — there is **no package.json, no src/, and no shipping code**. You cannot install or run it. Treat every kip "feature" described below as **design intent, not a capability you have today**.

**kip-sdk is the design for the *ideal core* beneath a future context-management product: a memory substrate that the rest of the ecosystem would consume. It is published as a specification so the design can be reviewed and grounded before any implementation exists.**

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On this page

• Status: spec only
• What it designs
• Stack role
• What is actually in the package
• Next steps

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Status: spec only

The package's own status banner reads: "Ship-quality v6 … Spec-only. Illustrative TypeScript interfaces are normative for *shape*, not implementation." There is no runtime. Any TypeScript you see in the spec describes the intended *shape* of interfaces — it is not code that runs.

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What it designs

"KIP" stands for **K**(nowledge) / **I**(nference) / **P**(rovenance). The design describes:

• A **git-substrate, bitemporal, signed-fact property-graph memory** whose unit of synchronization is an append-only, signed temporal fact.
• **Git as the sole source of truth** — the graph is a deterministic, rebuildable *projection* of a grow-only, Ed25519-signed fact set (a CRDT under union), giving coordinator-free convergence.
• **Hybrid retrieval:** vector search → graph expansion → reciprocal-rank fusion (RRF).
• **Episodic / semantic memory** with salience and decay.

A guiding principle from the design: "memory is a substrate, agents are clients (the Letta pitfall)." kip is positioned as a **library, not a runtime**.

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Stack role

The design (docs/28-stack-integration.md) positions kip as the **memory substrate** for the ecosystem: babysitter-sdk, genty, the adapters family, atlas, and kradle would all be producers/consumers/clients of its seams. Integration points are explicitly tagged in the spec as ALREADY-IN-SPEC, GROUNDED-NEW, or SPECULATIVE — a reminder that this is forward-looking design, not delivered integration.

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What is actually in the package

The package contains only Markdown:

• SPEC.md, PRIOR-ART.md, SCORECARD.md
• numbered design docs docs/00..90
• adversarial design reviews under reviews/iter-*-adversarial.md

No package.json. No src/. Nothing to build or install.

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Next steps

• **See where it would sit:** Architecture & How It Fits Together (kip is shown as design-stage)
• **Ecosystem map:** Ecosystem Overview
• **What ships today instead:** babysitter-sdk overview and Journal System