The Living Web

Six browser primitives for a decentralised semantic web — personal graphs, identity, peer-to-peer sync, dynamic schemas, governance, and group identity.

View the Demos · Chromium Fork

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The Problem

The web has no native primitives for user-owned semantic data. You can store blobs (IndexedDB), make HTTP requests (fetch), and stream media peer-to-peer (WebRTC). But there's no way to maintain a personal knowledge graph, sign it with your own identity, share it with peers, enforce governance rules, or organise into groups — without depending on someone else's server.

The Specifications

Six W3C-format draft specifications, totalling 5,865 lines:

#	Spec	Lines	Description
01	Personal Linked Data Graphs	544	navigator.graph — browser-native semantic triple store with SPARQL
02	Decentralised Identity	522	Extends navigator.credentials with DID key generation and signing
03	P2P Graph Synchronisation	1,952	Pluggable WASM sync modules, relay protocol, OR-Set CRDT
04	Dynamic Graph Shape Validation	733	SHACL extension with constructors, setters, collections
05	Graph Governance	1,083	ZCAP/VC constraint enforcement at the sync layer
06	Decentralised Group Identity	1,031	Holonic groups — individual = group of one, fractal nesting

Quick Examples

01 — Personal Linked Data Graphs

const calendar = await navigator.graph.create("My Calendar");

await calendar.addTriple({
  source: "urn:event:1",
  predicate: "schema://name",
  target: "Coffee with Nico"
});

const events = await calendar.querySparql(`
  SELECT ?event ?name WHERE {
    ?event <schema://name> ?name
  }
`);

02 — Decentralised Identity

const id = await navigator.credentials.create({
  did: { displayName: "Alice" }
});
console.log(id.did);  // "did:key:z6Mk..."

const signed = await id.sign({ message: "hello" });
const valid = await id.verify(signed);  // true

03 — P2P Graph Synchronisation

// Share a graph — peers sync via pluggable WASM module
const shared = await calendar.share({
  relays: ["relay.example.com"]
});
console.log(shared.uri);  // "graph://relay.example.com/abc?module=default"

// Another browser joins
const joined = await navigator.graph.join(shared.uri);
joined.ontripleadded = (e) => console.log("New:", e.triple);

04 — Dynamic Graph Shape Validation

await calendar.addShape("Event", JSON.stringify({
  targetClass: "schema://Event",
  properties: [
    { name: "name", path: "schema://name", datatype: "string", minCount: 1 },
    { name: "startDate", path: "schema://startDate", datatype: "dateTime" }
  ],
  constructor: [
    { action: "setSingleTarget", source: "this", predicate: "schema://name", target: "name" }
  ]
}));

await calendar.createShapeInstance("Event", "urn:event:2",
  JSON.stringify({ name: "Team Standup", startDate: "2026-04-07T09:00:00Z" })
);

05 — Graph Governance

// Rate limit: max 1 message per 30 seconds
await shared.addTriple({
  source: "urn:channel:general",
  predicate: "governance://has_constraint",
  target: "urn:constraint:slow-mode"
});
await shared.addTriple({
  source: "urn:constraint:slow-mode",
  predicate: "governance://temporal_min_interval_seconds",
  target: "data:,30"
});

// Pre-validation
const can = await shared.canAddTriple(myTriple);
// { allowed: false, module: "temporal", reason: "Wait 20 more seconds" }

06 — Decentralised Group Identity

const team = await navigator.graph.createGroup({ name: "Engineering" });
console.log(team.did);  // "did:key:z6Mk..." — persistent group identity

await team.addMember("did:key:z6MkAlice...");
await team.addMember("did:key:z6MkBob...");

// Nest: team joins organisation
const org = await navigator.graph.createGroup({ name: "Acme Corp" });
await org.addMember(team.did);  // group as member of group

// Transitive: who's in the org (recursively)?
const everyone = await org.transitiveMembers();

Implementations

Polyfills (works today in any browser)

6 npm packages implementing the full spec API. 364+ unit tests, 142+ E2E tests.

cd examples && pnpm install && pnpm dev:chat

Package	Tests	Description
@living-web/personal-graph	43	Triple store, SPARQL, IndexedDB persistence
@living-web/identity	51	Ed25519 DID, encrypted key storage
@living-web/graph-sync	86	DefaultSyncModule, WebSocket relay, OR-Set CRDT
@living-web/shape-validation	55	SHACL shapes with action semantics
@living-web/governance	81	ZCAP/VC/temporal/content constraints
@living-web/group-identity	41	Holonic groups, transitive membership

Chrome Extension

Install the extension → navigator.graph available on every page. Feature-detects native support.

Sync Modules (Rust → WASM)

Two pluggable sync modules proving the API works for different transports:

Module	Transport	NAT Traversal	Details
WebSocket Relay	WebSocket to relay server	Relay-mediated	142KB WASM, 14 tests
Iroh P2P	QUIC via WebTransport / iroh-net	Hole punching + relay fallback	WASM + native, 9 tests

Chromium Fork

Native implementation with Mojo IPC — navigator.graph works without polyfills.

Feature	Status
Graph CRUD (create/list/get/remove)	✅ Verified via CDP
addTriple / queryTriples / SPARQL / snapshot	✅ Real Mojo IPC
Identity (createIdentity / sign / verify)	✅ Ed25519 via BoringSSL
Shapes (addShape / createInstance)	✅
Events (ontripleadded)	✅ Registered
SharedGraph sync / governance	✅ Wired to backends
76 standalone C++ tests	✅ macOS + Linux

→ living-web-chromium

Demos

5 integration demos exercising all specs:

Demo	What it shows
💬 Community Chat	Discord-like with roles, governance, group identity
🔀 P2P Version Control	Git-lite with commits, branches, diffs
📝 Collaborative Document	Block editor with comments, cursors
🎨 Collaborative Canvas	SVG drawing with layers
🎮 Multiplayer Game	Three.js 3D world with collectibles

Relay Server

Minimal WebSocket relay for graph sync. Anyone can run one.

cd examples/relay && npx tsx src/index.ts

How It Composes

            ┌─────────────────────┐
            │    Applications     │
            └──────────┬──────────┘
                       │
    ┌──────────────────┼──────────────────┐
    │                  │                  │
┌───┴───┐      ┌──────┴──────┐    ┌──────┴──────┐
│  06   │      │     03      │    │     04      │
│ Group │      │  P2P Sync   │    │   Shapes    │
│Identity│     │(WASM modules)│   │  (SHACL)    │
└───┬───┘      └──────┬──────┘    └─────────────┘
    │          ┌──────┴──────┐
    │          │     05      │
    │          │ Governance  │
    │          │  (ZCAP/VC)  │
    │          └─────────────┘
┌───┴──────────────────────────────────────┐
│           01 Personal Graph              │
│      (navigator.graph — triples)         │
└──────────────────┬───────────────────────┘
              ┌────┴────┐
              │   02    │
              │Identity │
              │(DID/keys)│
              └─────────┘

Status

• Polyfills: 364+ unit tests, all passing
• E2E: 142+ Playwright tests
• Chromium: Built on Linux + macOS, verified via CDP
• Sync modules: 2 implementations (WebSocket + Iroh)

License

Specifications: W3C Software and Document License
Implementations: MIT