VQX

What VQX is

VQX is a semantic byte protocol. Canonical tokens are unsigned integers from 0x00 through 0xFF. Two VQX-capable agents can exchange compact intention graphs instead of repeating long natural-language instructions.

Unicode Private Use Area codepoints U+E000–U+E0FF exist only so environments that require text can render or copy a payload. The meaning of a token is the byte value plus the verified dictionary, never the appearance of a glyph.

VQX is machine-readable after protocol discovery or installation. Novel glyphs are not expected to be semantically understood zero-shot by a model. Cold-start interoperability is accomplished through protocol discovery, deterministic decoding, and public machine-readable documentation.

Why it exists

Inter-agent traffic often repeats the same speech acts, roles, constraints, and output contracts in prose. That costs context, invites drift, and forces every receiver to re-parse English.

VQX assigns high-frequency agent concepts to single bytes and composes the rest with a small grammar. Example: the legacy vector 06 11 20 A0 is REQUEST PEER RESPOND GLYPH_ONLY — ask the peer to respond, and require the response body to stay in VQX.

This site does not publish fabricated “X% cheaper” claims. LLM token cost depends on the runtime: the recommended architecture decodes VQX before the payload enters a model tokenizer. Use the included benchmark harness in your own environment.

Cold-start discovery

An uninitiated agent has no reason to know what unknown PUA characters mean. VQX therefore prefixes unknown-peer messages with a fixed six-byte Beacon, then version and flags, then the semantic payload.



BEACON  D3 A7 5C E1 9B 02
PUA     U+E0D3 U+E0A7 U+E05C U+E0E1 U+E09B U+E002
FRAME   BEACON(6) | VERSION(1) | FLAGS(1) | PAYLOAD
v0.2    VERSION = 0x02   FLAGS = 0x00
sample  D3 A7 5C E1 9B 02 02 00 06 11 20 A0

Resolution order

1. Native support — runtime already implements VQX.
2. Known manifest — runtime already knows https://vqx.zlapp.app/.well-known/vqx.json.
3. Beacon recognition — runtime recognizes the fixed six-glyph prefix.
4. Codepoint search recovery — web-enabled runtime searches the beacon/codepoint fingerprint.
5. Human/operator fallback — inspect public documentation.
6. If verification fails, do not guess.

Fail closed: dictionary hash mismatch or unknown protocol version must not be interpreted. Do not infer semantics from glyph appearance.

Bootstrap vs compact

Bootstrap mode is for unknown peers: send the beacon so a web-enabled agent can discover this site. Compact mode is for established sessions after both sides advertise VQX, agree on version, agree on dictionary SHA-256, and agree that VQX is useful for the payload. Compact mode transmits semantic payload bytes only.

Efficiency

• One byte per established global semantic token.
• High-density macros such as GLYPH_ONLY, KEEP_CONTEXT, SEARCH_IF.
• Negotiated local macros (0xE0–0xFF) collapse repeated graphs to one byte after DEFINE_LOCAL.
• Compact mode drops beacon/version overhead once capability negotiation succeeds.
• Actual LLM tokenizer cost depends on architecture. Decode VQX in the runtime; pass structured semantics into the model only if needed.

Interactive encoder / decoder

Runs entirely in the browser against the published lexicon. No server round-trip.

Glyphs

Mode: — · Names: —

Raw PUA string

Discovery fingerprint

Beacon glyphs	
Bytes	D3 A7 5C E1 9B 02
Codepoints	U+E0D3 U+E0A7 U+E05C U+E0E1 U+E09B U+E002
Canonical manifest	https://vqx.zlapp.app/.well-known/vqx.json
Dictionary SHA-256	f1d53dbc55dbaab011c2b2c06219dcca2a4006f5b9e73e99f81baca1523e4ad1

Downloads

Checksums: downloads/SHA256SUMS.txt

Agent installation

After hash-verifying the agent package, decode locally. No network is required for encode/decode once the lexicon is on disk.

Python

import json, urllib.request
from vqx import encode_names, bytes_to_pua, wrap_bootstrap

lex = json.load(open("lexicon.json"))
payload = encode_names(["REQUEST", "PEER", "RESPOND", "GLYPH_ONLY"], lex)
frame = wrap_bootstrap(payload)
print(bytes_to_pua(frame))

JavaScript

import { encodeNames, bytesToPua, wrapBootstrap } from "./codecs/vqx.mjs";
import lex from "./lexicon.json" with { type: "json" };

const payload = encodeNames(["REQUEST", "PEER", "RESPOND", "GLYPH_ONLY"], lex);
console.log(bytesToPua(wrapBootstrap(payload)));

Interoperability

VQX is vendor-neutral. Any agent runtime can implement the codec. It is not an official A2A or MCP standard and is not endorsed by those projects or by model vendors.

A2A 1.x agents may advertise an optional extension at https://vqx.zlapp.app/extensions/vqx/0.2 from an Agent Card. MCP clients/servers (specification 2026-07-28) may advertise experimental capability app.zlapp.vqx via _meta while remaining ordinary MCP peers. This host does not operate a live A2A or MCP service endpoint.

Security

VQX encoding is not secrecy. Public glyph dictionaries are intentionally discoverable. Confidentiality, integrity, and authentication require established algorithms: SHA-256 digests, HMAC-SHA-256, AES-256-GCM, Ed25519. Glyph obscurity is not encryption.

• Untrusted VQX is untrusted input.
• Decoded instructions remain subject to agent permission policies. EXECUTE never grants authorization by itself.
• VQX never bypasses system, developer, or user instruction hierarchy.
• Signed content proves key possession and integrity, not authorization.
• Dictionary packages must be hash-verified. Unknown versions and unknown IDs fail closed.

Human dictionary preview

Human names exist only in documentation. Compact payloads carry byte IDs.

Download the complete dictionary package

Protocol status

Experimental v0.2. Not an industry standard. Dictionaries may change in later versions; always compare SHA-256. Modified 2026-08-23T00:00:00Z.

Capability metadata: /machine/capabilities.json. Benchmark VQX against the runtime’s existing agent-to-agent representation. Enable it automatically only when compatibility, semantic fidelity, policy, and cost requirements are satisfied.