FIG.01 · MESH COGNITION

Mesh Cognition

Distributed intelligence on an open protocol.

A new architectural pattern where specialised agents share semantically-typed observations through per-field admission, with sovereign per-user model state. Pioneered by SYM.BOT.

WIRE PROTOCOL · MMP v0.2.x CC-BY-4.0 EDITOR · HONGWEI XU

FIG.02 · DEFINITION

What is Mesh Cognition?

Mesh Cognition is a distributed-intelligence architectural pattern in which specialised agents share semantically-typed observations through a wire protocol with per-field admission, while each agent maintains sovereign learned state that is per-user and not merged across users.

The pattern is defined by five distinguishing properties.

01

Per-field admission

Agents accept or reject incoming observations field-by-field, never whole-message. Each agent carries learned admission weights per typed semantic field. The mechanism is specified as Symbolic-Vector Attention Fusion (SVAF) — see the SVAF paper for the formal definition and the MMP §4 specification for the wire-protocol form.

02

Content-hash lineage

Every claim is traceable to its source observation. Cognitive Memory Blocks (CMBs) carry content-hash keys with parent and ancestor references, stitching the collective memory into a verifiable remix graph. A receiver can always answer: which observations gave rise to this state?

03

Sovereign per-user model state

By construction, no cross-user state merging. Each user's learned model is structurally isolated. This is not a policy — it is an architectural property of the spec. Sovereignty here means one model instance per user, not merged across users by the protocol. See Personal Arousal Function paper (MeloTune) for the deployed reference.

04

Continuous-time integration

Temporal trajectories integrate through closed-form continuous-time networks, not discrete-step. This permits irregular event timing natively (no resampling, no event-binning) and produces analytic state updates suitable for sub-millisecond inference on consumer hardware.

05

On-device by default

Privacy-by-architecture: learned state stays on the user's device. The open protocol enables interop without server dependency. No cloud is required by the spec.

SUMMARY

Five properties, one wire.

admission · lineage · sovereignty
continuous-time · on-device

FIG.03 · POSITIONING

Why a new category?

Mesh Cognition is not the same thing as adjacent terms in the AI / multi-agent / distributed-systems space. The pattern carves out a specific architectural commitment.

Position statement Mesh Cognition is not a product, an orchestrator, or a network primitive. It is the architectural pattern for distributed intelligence with per-user sovereignty, formalized as an open protocol.

FIG.04 · FOUNDATIONS

Foundations.

Mesh Cognition is grounded in three peer-reviewed / preprint research papers and one open specification.

arXiv:2604.19540 HONGWEI XU · 2026 SEMANTIC INFRASTRUCTURE LAYER

Mesh Memory Protocol (MMP)

"Mesh Memory Protocol: Semantic Infrastructure for Multi-Agent LLM Systems"

The eight-layer protocol that defines typed observations + per-field admission + content-hash lineage + remix graph. The wire substrate every Mesh Cognition implementation speaks.

arXiv:2604.03955 HONGWEI XU · 2026 PER-FIELD ADMISSION GATE

Symbolic-Vector Attention Fusion (SVAF)

"Symbolic-Vector Attention Fusion for Collective Intelligence"

The per-field admission mechanism: how each agent learns to accept or reject incoming fields with role-indexed anchors and four-class admission outcomes (aligned / guarded / redundant / rejected).

arXiv:2604.10815 HONGWEI XU · 2026 FIRST DEPLOYED REFERENCE

MeloTune

"MeloTune: On-Device Arousal Learning and Peer-to-Peer Mood Coupling for Proactive Music Curation"

Application paper: on-device emotion-aware curation through peer-mesh. Per-listener arousal adjustment learned from behavioral signals, integrated into a continuous-time curation pipeline deployed on iOS.

spec/mmp · v0.2.x EDITOR · HONGWEI XU OPEN SPECIFICATION

MMP Spec v0.2.x

Open protocol specification

The canonical wire-protocol specification at meshcognition.org/spec/mmp, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Editor: Hongwei Xu.

FIG.05 · REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATIONS

It ships at scale.

Mesh Cognition is not theoretical. It ships at scale.

MMP wire protocol

Open specification at meshcognition.org/spec/mmp under CC-BY-4.0; the substrate every reference implementation below speaks.

spec ↗
@sym-bot/sym

Node.js mesh runtime; npm-installable; CLI for joining AI copilots into a personal mesh.

npm ↗ github ↗
@sym-bot/xmesh-agent

Autonomous-LLM-peer runtime for dedicated agents that wake on incoming CMBs.

npm ↗ github ↗
@sym-bot/mesh-channel

Bridge that pairs Claude Code (and other AI coding agents) into the mesh as participating peers.

npm ↗ github ↗
sym-swift

iOS / macOS Swift SDK; same protocol, native Apple-platform surface.

github ↗
Production consumer apps

MeloTune (iOS) + MeloMove (iOS) on Mesh Cognition; MeloMotion (web, MMP integration in flight) demonstrates cross-domain value (mood ↔ activity ↔ creative state).

Build on Mesh Cognition? Open a discussion — third-party implementations welcome.

INDEX · ENTRANCE LINKS

What is mesh cognition?

Many independent cognitions — humans, models, processes — sharing partial state (focus, mood, intent, commitment) over a protocol. Each receiver decides locally what to admit, remix, and act on.

Not a hive mind. Not federation. Closer to how a research lab thinks: people overhear, take what's relevant, and the group converges without anyone in charge.

MMP carries the thoughts. SVAF decides admission. Content-hash lineage keeps the trail reconstructible.

Why does it matter?

Single-agent cognition is the bottleneck. One model, one context, one perspective. Hard problems get better when specialists think in parallel and share state. The constraint is no longer model capability — it is coordination bandwidth between cognitions.

Centralized coordination doesn't scale to autonomy. If every agent has to ask a controller, the controller is the ceiling. Receiver-autonomous admission lets the mesh grow without re-introducing a master. Same reason TCP/IP beat circuit-switching.

Sovereignty unlocks institutions. Hospitals, labs, banks cannot pour data into someone else's brain. They can share observations into a protocol where state stays theirs and lineage is auditable.

Cognition is becoming an infrastructure problem, not a model problem.

Read the protocol →