# Author Intent Layer: Specification 1.1.0 (Public Draft)

**Status:** public draft, not a recognized W3C/IETF/AI-provider standard.  
**Scope:** publication, discovery, parsing and structural validation of author-declared semantic metadata.  
**Supersedes for new publication:** AIL 1.0 publication guidance. Existing AIL 1.0 JSON records remain supported.

## 1. Purpose and limits

AIL declares the author or editor's account of the central question, thesis, and optional structure of a digital work. It is **descriptive metadata**, not an instruction to AI models, an assertion that the author is right, or a claim that AI will automatically discover/use it.

## 2. Profiles

### Core

Required: `spec = "Author Intent Layer"`, `spec_version = "1.1.0"`, `document.url`, `document.language`, `intent.central_question`, `intent.central_thesis.text`.

### Extended

Optional: `record_id`, document title, revision and publication dates; declaration attribution; conceptual distinction; argument path; claims; interpretation boundaries; exact text quotation anchors; verification status (self-reported). The presence of a field never constitutes independent verification.

The published [JSON Schema](../schemas/ail-v1.1.schema.json) is normative for structure. All extension properties not defined in this schema are invalid; to add third-party information, propose a compatible extension for a future draft.

## 3. Embedded-first publication

Preferred AIL delivery is exactly **one** HTML `<meta name="author-intent-layer" content="…">` in the HTML `<head>`. The entire `content` string is valid JSON serialized into a safe HTML attribute. The JSON Schema applies to the decoded attribute value; it does not validate the HTML wrapper itself.

```html
<head>
  <title>Example essay</title>
  <meta name="description" content="...">
  <meta name="author-intent-layer" content="{&quot;spec&quot;:&quot;Author Intent Layer&quot;,&quot;spec_version&quot;:&quot;1.1.0&quot;,&quot;document&quot;:{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://example.org/essay.html&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;},&quot;intent&quot;:{&quot;central_question&quot;:&quot;Why collaborate?&quot;,&quot;central_thesis&quot;:{&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Collaboration can generate new capabilities.&quot;}}}">
</head>
```

Use a real HTML-escaping library (attribute context). Do not hand-concatenate unescaped author text. Escape `&`, `<`, `>`, double and single quotes. Embedding large payloads is supported by HTML syntax but may be truncated or removed by crawlers; keep core metadata brief and use external JSON when appropriate. **Neither HTML nor AIL guarantees discoverability by an AI product.**

## 4. Alternative representations

1. **Data block:** `<script type="application/json" id="ail-declaration">{...}</script>` (JSON must be safe for HTML script raw-text context; escape `<` as `\u003c` to prevent literal `</script>` from terminating it). 
2. **External JSON:** `<link rel="describedby" type="application/json" href="https://example.org/essay.intent.json">` in `<head>`. Hosting and an extra fetch are required; some AI browser tools cannot retrieve standalone JSON.

A publisher SHOULD expose exactly one authoritative declaration per page and MAY generate another representation from it. If more than one representation exists, values MUST agree; the embedded meta is preferred by the reference extractor and divergent declarations are a publishing error.

## 5. Discovery

For a consumer that can access original HTML: look for the case-insensitive meta name `author-intent-layer` in `<head>`; HTML-decode `content`, JSON.parse it, validate against the `spec_version` schema, and treat content as untrusted author-declared data. If no meta is present, a consumer MAY search a data block or `describedby` link. Some reading tools strip `<head>`; the protocol cannot force discovery.

## 6. Validation and evidence

**Structural:** JSON syntax, schema fields, types, references, duplicate IDs. **Binding (optional):** `document.url` compared with the target page (ignore query/hash for expected URL matching only). **Quote check (optional):** exact `TextQuoteSelector` passages present in supplied article text after whitespace/NFC normalization.

A successful check MUST NOT be labelled proof of authorship, factual correctness, argument validity, compliance by any AI model, or successful external publication.

## 7. Local browser API

> **Implementation status for this documentation release:** the interface below describes the v1.1 reference toolkit target. This repository does not yet ship `ail-sdk.js` or expose `window.AIL`. Its existing URL validator supports v1.0.0 external JSON only. Publishing this draft does not add v1.1 validation or embedded metadata extraction to that tool. Statements below about toolkit support describe the target implementation, not a claim about the deployed validator.


The v1.1 reference toolkit interface specifies JavaScript `window.AIL` (not an HTTP endpoint): `parseInput(text)`, `readFromHTML(html)`, `toMeta(record)`, `validateRecord(record, options)` (async), `getVersion(record)`, `schemaURL(version)`. See [Browser API implementation status](browser-api/).

Static public resources are GET-only: `/schemas/ail-v1.1.schema.json`, `/schemas/ail-v1.0.schema.json` and `/examples/…`. **No `POST /api/validate` or AI service is operated by this static site.** A server API and AI auditing are optional future products.

## 8. Compatibility and versioning

Version `1.0.x` records are read against the immutable v1.0 JSON Schema; v1.1.0 introduces an explicitly reduced Core profile and a new schema. Do not simply replace the version number in a 1.0 record without checking required/allowed fields and validating it. A conforming v1.1 browser toolkit is expected to support both record families; see the implementation status in section 7. This draft changes the publication convention, not the identity of a prior author declaration.

## 9. Privacy, trust and performance

AIL declarations are public. Do not include confidential draft notes, unconsented personal data, model instructions, hidden evaluation prompts or secrets. Treat AIL as untrusted page content. The reference validator operates in-browser without sending content to a remote AI or custom processing endpoint; the browser loads schema and examples from the current website.

## 10. Roadmap

AIL 1.x: improve publication/discovery, SDK, conformance, reference tests. Future services: optional semantic auditing, model comparisons and cross-language checking; these are **not** requirements of AIL 1.x and do not imply that the open declaration format becomes paid.