Core and Network

Kreds is one product split across three layers with different owners, licences and rules. Getting the split right is what lets the software be genuinely open without making the shared economy trivially exploitable.

┌──────────────────────────┐
│      Kreds Core          │
│        AGPLv3            │
│                          │
│ GitHub                   │
│ Teams                    │
│ Contributions            │
│ Local Economy            │
│ Ledger                   │
│ Self-hosting             │
└────────────┬─────────────┘
             │
             │ Optional
             ▼
┌──────────────────────────┐
│ Kreds Network Protocol   │
│ Public specification     │
└────────────┬─────────────┘
             │
             ▼
┌──────────────────────────┐
│ Official Kreds Network   │
│ Private infrastructure   │
│                          │
│ Official KRED            │
│ Central Bank             │
│ Global Settlement        │
│ Risk Engine              │
│ Federation               │
└──────────────────────────┘

Kreds Core

Everything in this repository. AGPLv3. A complete product on its own.

• GitHub authentication and the GitHub App integration
• Teams, organizations, repository activity ingestion
• Contribution Points and leaderboards
• A local economy: local currency, supply, treasuries, Review Funds
• The economic ledger
• Seasons, achievements, challenges
• Local monetary policy
• Web, API, workers, documentation

A Core instance runs a real economy with real rules. It is not a demo, a trial, or a version with the interesting parts removed.

Kreds Network Protocol

The public boundary between the two. A separate specification repository, planned as kreds-network-spec, describing how an instance talks to the Network:

• protocol versions and compatibility
• economic event types and schemas
• instance registration
• signing, nonces, timestamps
• expected responses

The specification describes how to communicate, not how the Network decides. Trust scoring, fraud detection, settlement internals and monetary eligibility are not in it, because a published rule for detecting abuse is a published recipe for evading it.

Official Kreds Network

Private infrastructure, operated by ZitDevs, behind kreds.sh. Not in this repository and not open source.

• The Official KRED ledger and the fixed global supply
• The Kreds Central Bank
• Global wallets and global settlement
• The Review Credit Facility
• Cross-organization settlement and network-connected sovereign economies
• Global repository trust and global identity trust
• The Risk Engine, anti-farming and abuse detection
• Network circuit breakers, instance verification, federation

This is the part that only exists because the economy is shared. A single authoritative ledger cannot be run by everyone at once, and anti-abuse systems stop working when their thresholds are public.

What self-hosting actually gets you

Independent by default. A self-hosted instance runs its own economy with no dependency on kreds.sh, and does not automatically participate in the Official Network.

Self-Hosted Kreds
        ↓
Independent Economy
        ↓
Your infrastructure
Your currency
Your rules
Your ledger

Your instance issues its own currency under its own monetary policy. That currency is yours. It is not Official KRED, and it does not carry a claim on the global supply, which is precisely what keeps a self-hosted instance from being able to mint the shared currency.

Joining the Network

An independent instance may later choose to connect.

Self-Hosted Kreds
        ↓
Kreds Network Protocol
        ↓
Official Kreds Network

Connecting can bring Official KRED, network identity, official settlement, KRED-backed organization currencies, network treasuries and participation in the global economy. It requires following the protocol and meeting the Network's integrity requirements.

Joining preserves history. An economy that had 42,000 local units before joining still has them afterwards, recorded as an opening snapshot rather than reset.

The architecture rule that keeps this honest

Kreds Core must never depend on private Network code. The open-source application has to be independently runnable, or the open-source claim is decoration.

Optional Network integration goes through an interface, with the independent implementation as the default:

interface KredsNetworkProvider {
  submitEconomicEvent(event: EconomicEvent): Promise<SubmissionResult>;
  getNetworkIdentity(githubUserId: string): Promise<NetworkIdentity | null>;
  getOfficialKredPosition(accountId: string): Promise<Position | null>;
}

Independent mode   LocalEconomyProvider          (in Core, the default)
Network mode       OfficialKredsNetworkProvider  (private, not in Core)

Core depends on the interface. It never imports the Network implementation, and the Network implementation never leaks into this repository.

The test for whether the boundary is holding: delete every trace of the Network and Core still builds, still runs, and still gives a team a working economy. If that ever stops being true, the split has been broken and the licence is describing something that no longer exists.

The model in one place

KREDS CORE              AGPLv3, open source, self-hostable
KREDS NETWORK SPEC      Public protocol, open integration boundary
OFFICIAL KREDS NETWORK  Private infrastructure, Official KRED, Central Bank
KREDS.SH                The official hosted Kreds service

Open-source product. Open protocol. Proprietary network.