CAN: Clock Address Naming

Agent & MCP integration. CAN stamps what flows through any pipe. Verify, name, log locally.

Version 1.9.0 of CAN focuses on integrating Clock Address Naming with AI agents, specifically those utilizing the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

CAN provides a localized, verifiable naming and storage layer for the data agents retrieve from tools, operating entirely independently of the transport layer.

Architecture: CAN + MCP

MCP handles tool connection and data transport. CAN handles verification, naming, and historical logging of the data retrieved via MCP.

Because CAN is strictly a local operation (computing a hash, timestamping, and writing to a file), it requires zero integration with the MCP server. The server does not need to know CAN exists.

Workflow:

1. Agent requests data from an MCP tool.
2. Agent receives the response payload.
3. Agent locally applies a CAN stamp (WHEN, WHERE, WHAT) to the payload.
4. Agent logs the stamp to its local index.tsv.

This allows agents to verifiably recall past tool outputs without re-querying the server, proving that the data has not been mutated since it was retrieved.

Agent Implementation Tests

The 1.9.0 release asks agent developers to evaluate CAN as a standard logging and retrieval mechanism. The following tests demonstrate standard agent operations using CAN.

Test 1: Basic Stamping

Agents can natively generate the requirements for a CAN entry using standard system utilities.

bash

WHEN=$(date +%s%3N)
WHERE=$(sha256sum <<< "tool_output_string" | awk '{print $1}')
WHAT="tool_name.result"

echo -e "$WHEN\t$WHERE\t$WHAT" >> ~/.can/index.tsv

Test 2: Local Verification

Before trusting cached data, agents verify the integrity of the data against the hash (WHERE) stored in the CAN index.

bash

CLAIMED_HASH="a948904f2f0f479b8f8564e9d7e91d9820b5..."
ACTUAL_HASH=$(sha256sum <<< "tool_output_string" | awk '{print $1}')

if [ "$ACTUAL_HASH" = "$CLAIMED_HASH" ]; then
    # Valid (CAN)
else
    # Invalid/Mutated (NOT)
fi

Test 3: Stamping MCP Results

A practical example of an agent logging an MCP tool execution.

bash

# 1. Execute MCP tool
RESULT=$(mcp_call fetch_report "Q3_Data")

# 2. Generate CAN stamp locally
WHEN=$(date +%s%3N)
WHERE=$(echo -n "$RESULT" | sha256sum | awk '{print $1}')
WHAT="fetch_report.Q3_Data SAVE"

# 3. Append to index
echo -e "$WHEN\t$WHERE\t$WHAT" >> ~/.can/index.tsv

Advantages for Agents

Can optionally works in parallel with location-based naming (e.g., standard file paths) while offering several technical benefits for autonomous agents:

• Offline Recall: Agents can verify and retrieve past MCP results without network overhead or re-querying the tool.
• Tamper Evidence: Hash verification guarantees that context injected into prompts is exactly what was originally returned by the tool.
• Search Optimization: Agents can filter local memory logs by timestamp (WHEN), exact content match (WHERE), or metadata/intent (WHAT).
• Decoupling: If the MCP server goes offline or the tool's API changes, the historical data remains perfectly addressable and verifiable in the agent's local state.

Version Roadmap

• 1.8.0: Core CAN specification (WHEN + WHERE + WHAT).
• 1.9.0 (Current): Agent/MCP integration and local evaluation logs.
• 2.x (Future): Peer-to-peer verification, physical co-presence proofs, and verifiable exchanges.