Open infrastructure for creative authorship on the AT Protocol. Fifteen record types for world-building, attribution, lineage, and rights across any media. Authorship travels with every object. Nobody owns the infrastructure.
A free set of building blocks for creative people. It keeps track of who made what — in any kind of creative project — and nobody can take that away. It works on a social network called the AT Protocol, but you don’t need to know what that is yet.
Ptah defines Lexicon schemas on ATProto. Worlds, characters, actions, events, logs, collections, traces — each is a typed record in a user’s repository. Records reference each other via AT URIs. Any AppView can index them. Any client can render them.
Think of it like a set of blank forms. There’s a form for creating a world, a form for making a character, a form for something that happens, a form for a competition, and so on. You fill out the form, and it gets saved to your account. Anyone can read it. Any app can display it.
The schema handles authorship, attribution chains, usage rights, version history, creative lineage, and canonical status at the protocol layer. No central server decides what’s canon. The records do.
The forms automatically track who made what, who helped, what’s allowed, and what came from where. No company gets to decide those things — the forms themselves carry that information wherever they go.
The foundational record. Everything else references a world.The container for everything. Like creating a new universe to put stuff in.
A person, creature, or entity that exists inside a world.Someone (or something) that lives in your world. Not you — a character you created.
The heartbeat. Something happened inside a world.Something happened. A character did a thing, said a thing, or showed up somewhere.
A shared identity template. Multiple characters embody one template.A role that different people can play. Iron Man is a template — Tony Stark is one version of it.
Bundles works together. An album, anthology, season, or curated set.A group of things that belong together. Like an album, a season, or a playlist.
Temporal orchestration for content delivery. Release schedules, gated access, sequential unlocks.The world’s clock. Controls when things come out — weekly drops, early access, surprise releases.
Tracks lineage between works. The paper trail from source to derivative.Shows where something came from. This song sampled that song. This movie was based on that comic.
Where competition becomes history. Witnessed into the permanent record.A big moment — a battle, a tournament, a ceremony. People were there, and it’s on the record.
The world’s history book. Traced back to the actions and events that generated it.The story of what happened, written down. You can always trace it back to the events it came from.
The attribution layer. Who contributed what, under what terms and lineage.The credits. Who made this, who helped, and what was their deal.
A place inside a world. Nests infinitely via parent references.A place. Places can be inside other places — a room inside a building inside a city.
Terms and permissions for a work. What’s allowed, where, and for how long.The rules. Can someone else use this? Can they sell it? For how long?
Edit history within a work. Every version, every change, linked to its predecessor.Save history. Draft, published, revised — every version is kept and linked.
Signals an account participates in the protocol. One per account. Discovery hook for AppViews.A flag that says “I’m here, I use Ptah.” One per person. Helps apps find participants.
Shared token definitions referenced across all record types.Shared vocabulary that all the forms use. Like a legend on a map.
Attribution as architecture. 100+ contributors credited at the protocol layer. Samples traced to their origins. The record of who made what, permanently.
View full example →Template/Character split across decades. Tony Stark is a Character — Iron Man is a Template. Events witnessed into permanent record. Collections spanning phases.
View full example →Brackets, bids, results. Competitive witnesses. Season records as permanent history.
View full example →Game Master and players. Sessions as events. Dice rolls in the permanent record. Campaign journals as logs.
View full example →Fifteen record types defined and formalized as Lexicon JSON. Production schemas published to the ATProto network under world.ptah.*. GitHub, documentation, and website live.All fifteen forms are designed and published. They’re live on the network right now. The code and docs are public.
Namespace-scoped indexer for the ATProto firehose. A way to browse worlds, characters, and accumulated history.A search engine and browser for everything people create with these forms.
Dispute records. Canon branching vocabulary. World governance documents. Cross-world references. Geographic analytics.Ways to handle disagreements, let stories branch, set community rules, connect different worlds, and map locations.
Build your first world in five minutes. Curl commands and example JSON.
Field-level reference for every record type. Types, constraints, and how records connect.
Four complete world record chains. RENAISSANCE, the MCU, Blacksky Spades, and The Shattered Reach.
Terms from protocol infrastructure, world-building, and competitive play.
Where the protocol is and where it’s going. What’s done, what’s next, what’s later.
Lexicon schemas, documentation, and the full repository. MIT / Apache-2.0.
Designed by R. Michael Thomas — a community infrastructure architect working at the intersection of creative systems, authorship infrastructure, and open protocol design.
Schema complete and pressure-tested. Fourteen record types formalized as Lexicon JSON. Production schemas published and live on the ATProto network. Next phase: AppView architecture.
Open infrastructure. Nobody owns it. If you make music, write stories, build worlds, design games, or care about creative attribution on the open web — this is for you.