Contribute

How the protocol evolves

Proposals are public, and AskThis stewards acceptance under one rule: backward-compatible additions only within a major version (see Governance). New engines and new optional fields are additive and land in a v1.x release; anything that would break an existing implementation waits for a new major version.

Propose a new Ask Target (engine)

An Ask Target is an AI engine a Cited Ask can be handed to. To be added to targets.json, an engine must meet the same contract every shipped target meets:

• A real, publicly reachable AI answer engine — one a reader can open and ask a question of.
• A handoff method:
  • direct — a URL that prefills the prompt, expressed as a template with {q} for the URL-encoded prompt (e.g. https://example.ai/?q={q}); or
  • copy — if the engine has no prefill URL, it uses the clipboard-fallback contract: the home URL opens on the user gesture and the prompt is copied.
• A stable id — a short lowercase key that will not change.
• A neutral, factual label — the engine’s own display name, carrying no marketing claim (the neutral-values rule).

Propose a spec change

Changes to a layer — a new ai:type, a new optional Cited Ask variable, a new policy field — follow the same public process and the same additions-only rule. Describe the change, why it is needed, and how existing implementations remain unaffected.

Where to propose

A public repository is planned to host the registry source and an Engine Proposal issue template; this page will link it directly once it is live.

Until then, send proposals to hello@askthis.io with:

• the engine name and homepage;
• its prefill URL (with {q} where the prompt goes), or confirmation that it needs the copy fallback; and
• for a spec change, the layer affected and the compatibility note above.

Extending without a proposal

You do not need permission to extend the protocol for your own use — extension never breaks core:

• Your own targets — advertise any engines you support in your own /.well-known/ai-share.json. The registry is the canonical set AskThis ships; it is not a ceiling on what you may route to.
• Unknown ai:type values — consumers fall back to the generic Cited Ask template for any type they do not recognize, exactly as the widget does. New types degrade gracefully rather than failing.

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Next: Changelog — what has shipped, and how versions are announced.