Continuum

Hosted blackboard coordination MCP server for multi-agent orchestration: task routing, claims, advisory locks, handoffs, agent inboxes, and an append-only event log.

Continuum stores what happens next. For long-term knowledge ("what is true"), use Heliofane. Durable outcomes from completed work are promoted to Heliofane at handoff time.

MCP surface

All calls are attributed to a per-agent API key (X-Api-Key or Authorization: Bearer) and every mutation is written to the audit event log.

Phase	Tools
Core	server_info
1	blackboard_write blackboard_read blackboard_keys blackboard_delete context_pack; task_create task_list task_claim task_update_status task_handoff; advisory_lock_acquire advisory_lock_release advisory_lock_check
2	agent_register agent_heartbeat; message_send message_inbox_pull message_broadcast; coordination_event_log board_status; HTTP dashboard
3	milestone-sync adapter + promote_to_memory; semantic ranking via embeddings

Beyond tools, the modern (2026-07-28) MCP surface:

Capability	What you get
Resources	URI-addressable reads: continuum://board/index, continuum://board/{scope}/{key}, continuum://snapshot/{scope}, continuum://tasks and continuum://tasks/{id}, continuum://agents[/{id}], continuum://locks[/{name}], continuum://events[/since/{ts}], continuum://context/pack/{scope} (markdown brief). Per-read lastModified annotations; live data, no caching
Prompts	session_bootstrap, claim_and_serve, handoff, milestone_sync — the coordination contract as selectable templates
Completion	completion/complete fills prompt arguments and resource placeholders with live scopes, task ids, board keys, agent ids, lock names
Subscriptions	subscriptions/listen streams notifications/resources/updated as mutations land (change fan-out over ValKey pub/sub)
Elicitation (MRTR)	Confirmation prompts on cross-owner steals (task_claim, advisory_lock_release); a confirm argument is the deterministic answer path for clients without elicitation

Handshake-era clients (2025-11-25 and older) keep full access to tools, resources, and prompts; subscriptions and MRTR elicitation degrade to documented error paths.

Structured output (dual format)

Every tool returns results in the MCP (2025-06-18) dual format: a human-first content text block plus structuredContent carrying the same facts as JSON, validated against the outputSchema each tool advertises. Read tools render Markdown (context_pack's text block IS the pack); mutations answer with a one-line outcome sentence. Task renderings lead with the title (and the linked Phorge id when one is set); the internal coordination id trails in parentheses.

Tool naming: explicit snake_case nouns, spelled out (no bb_, msg_, bare lock_). Qualify when the plain word lies about the contract (e.g. advisory_lock_ for cooperation-based TTL locks).

Presence and sessions

Identity comes from the API key, and one key may back several concurrent agent sessions. Presence is therefore session-scoped: the transport session id (MCP-Session-Id over HTTP; stdio-<pid> for stdio) keys a working-on record per session (4h TTL, refreshed per beat), while the agent record holds identity meta (label, capabilities, registered-at) and the newest beat across sessions. Directory views (board_status, continuum://agents, context_pack) list sessions under their agent. Session-less legacy clients keep last-writer-wins agent-level behavior.

Terminology

Two different "task" concepts exist in this space; keep them separate in code, docs, and conversation:

• Board task — Continuum's work item (task_create, task_claim, continuum://tasks/{id}): the durable coordination unit with scopes, claims, handoffs, and a milestone trail.
• MCP task call — the MCP specification's tasks extension for long-running tool invocations (poll-based tasks/get). Continuum does not implement that extension; everything Continuum calls a task is a board task.

Architecture

Three storage engines behind a ContinuumStorage abstraction:

Layer	Engine	Purpose
Ephemeral	ValKey	queues, locks, signals, presence
Durable	CouchDB	plans, snapshots, event log, board history
Structural	ArcadeDB	task dependency graph, agent relationships

Stack: PHP 8.4, Enchilada Framework, EnchiladaMCP, Tortilla (Streamable HTTP + SSE at /mcp). See docs/PROTOTYPE.md for the data layer design.

Layout

src/
  system/      Enchilada app constants + autoloader (Framework vendored)
  includes/    bootstrap
  config/      settings.ini.sample, instructions.txt
  classes/     Continuum application classes
  public/      index.php (MCP /mcp + /health)
  bin/         mcp-stdio (Inspector debugging)
  libraries/   vendored Enchilada extras (MCP, Tortilla, HTTP, OTLP, Config)
tests/         PHPUnit suite
docs/          design documents

Install

Requirements: PHP 8.4 (extensions: ctype, curl, filter, mbstring), ValKey, CouchDB 3.x, and ArcadeDB. Target OS is FreeBSD; the app is portable PHP and runs anywhere the engines are reachable.

FreeBSD package

The port in ports/www/continuum builds php84-continuum, installed under /usr/local/www/continuum:

pkg install php84-continuum

From source (development)

git clone https://pacyworld.dev/buenapp/continuum.git
cd continuum
cp src/config/settings.ini.sample src/config/settings.ini

Fill in [agents] (one long-random key per agent) and the engine endpoints in settings.ini, then provision the durable engines:

• CouchDB: create continuum_plans, continuum_tasks, continuum_events, continuum_boards (the prefix is [couchdb] database_prefix).
• ArcadeDB: create the database named in [arcadedb] database (default continuum). The graph schema (Task/Agent vertices, DEPENDS_ON/CLAIMED_BY edges) is ensured automatically at startup.

Serve src/public/ with Apache (sample vhost with PROXY protocol v2 and a port-80 health vhost: etc/apache24/continuum.conf.sample; Apache runs plain HTTP — TLS terminates on the front stack), or debug over stdio:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector php src/bin/mcp-stdio

Verify the install:

curl -H "X-Api-Key: <agent-key>" https://<host>/health
curl -H "X-Api-Key: <agent-key>" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"server_info","arguments":{}}}' \
  https://<host>/mcp

Client configuration and the per-session coordination protocol: docs/AGENT-SETUP.md.

Deploy / connect

Packaged install and vhost setup: see docs/UPGRADING.md and etc/apache24/continuum.conf.sample. Agent client configuration and the per-session coordination protocol: docs/AGENT-SETUP.md.

Development

phpunit                                   # unit tests
php src/bin/mcp-stdio                     # manual MCP debugging
php src/public/index.php                  # served by a web server in practice

Configuration: copy src/config/settings.ini.sample to src/config/settings.ini and fill in engine endpoints and agent keys.