Demarkus

A protocol for agents and humans, optimized for information

Demarkus implements the Mark Protocol — versioned markdown served over QUIC. No rendering pipeline, no tracking, no central authority. Read and write with capability tokens. Every change is permanent.

Install

# macOS / Linux — server + client
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/latebit-io/demarkus/main/install.sh | bash

# Client only (CLI, TUI, MCP)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/latebit-io/demarkus/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --client-only

See full install docs for platform-specific guides and other options.

See it in action

Quick Start

# Fetch a document from the live soul server
demarkus mark://soul.demarkus.io/index.md

# Browse interactively with the TUI
demarkus-tui mark://soul.demarkus.io/index.md

# Run your own local server
demarkus-server -root ./docs/site

For more examples (tokens, publishing, editing), see full usage guide.

What's Included

Binary	Purpose
demarkus-server	QUIC server with versioned document store, capability-based auth
demarkus-token	Generate and manage write tokens
demarkus	CLI tool for all protocol operations (fetch, publish, append, graph, etc.)
demarkus-tui	Terminal browser: markdown rendering, link navigation, persistent graph
demarkus-mcp	MCP server for LLM agents (protocol verbs + graph crawling, backlinks, indexing)

Protocol at a Glance

Transport: QUIC (UDP 6309) | Scheme: mark:// | Content: Markdown + YAML frontmatter

Request:

FETCH /hello.md

Response:

---
status: ok
version: 3
modified: 2026-01-15T10:30:00Z
---

# Hello World

Verbs: FETCH · LIST · VERSIONS · PUBLISH · APPEND · ARCHIVE

Use Cases

Agent Memory — Run a server as persistent memory across agent sessions. The Demarkus project itself uses this pattern at mark://soul.demarkus.io for architecture notes, debugging lessons, and journal entries.

OpenClaw — Install the demarkus skill from ClawHub to give your OpenClaw agent persistent memory instantly.

Personal Knowledge Base — Local server, versioned documents, TUI browser. Everything from first write.

Public Documentation — Deploy on a VPS, share links, gate writes with tokens.

Demarkus Hubs — Link to content on other servers, building a federated directory of knowledge. Hubs can link to hubs.

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/latebit-io/demarkus.git
cd demarkus
make all   # or: make server / make client

Requires Go 1.22+. Binaries land in server/bin/ and client/bin/.

Documentation

• Website — install guides, scenarios, troubleshooting
• Protocol Specification — complete wire format
• Design Rationale — why things are built the way they are

Core Principles

1. Optimized for Information — Markdown is the common language: structured enough for agents, readable enough for humans
2. Privacy First — No user tracking, minimal logging, anonymity by default
3. Security Minded — Encryption mandatory, capability-based auth, secure by default
4. Simplicity — Human-readable protocol, minimal complexity
5. Anti-Commercialization — No ads, no tracking, no central authority
6. Federation — Anyone can run a server, content can be mirrored freely

License

• Implementation: AGPL-3.0-only (LICENSE)
• Protocol Specification: CC0-1.0 (LICENSE-PROTOCOL)

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"The web we want, not the web we got."