📖 The Meta-Layer Glossary

🧠 Our Glossary

Meta-layer

A programmable coordination environment that runs above digital interfaces, enabling shared presence, identity, governance, and meaning. Not a platform, but a public infrastructure layer with its own specific governance.
When we refer to “The Meta-Layer,” we’re speaking specifically about the Overweb, the first fully instantiated meta-layer.

The Metaweb

Introduced in the recent book, The Metaweb: The Next Level of the Internet. The decentralized public space above webpages. The Metaweb can accommodate a virtually unlimited number of meta-layers.

The Overweb

The first full instantiation of a meta-layer within the Metaweb. Also referred to as “the Overweb.”

Overlay

A visual and semantic layer rendered above the webpage (or app, virtual or physical object), containing presence indicators, smart tags, interactions, and community-governed logic.

Application Substrate

A foundational runtime and developer environment for building overlay applications, agents, and smart tags within a Meta-Layer.
The substrate provides APIs, identity primitives, presence protocols, and governance hooks—enabling composable, interoperable apps to function above digital interfaces like websites or virtual spaces.

Presence

The visible expression of a person (or agent) in a digital space, governed by context, consent, and identity scope. In the Meta-layer, presence is not a passive indicator (“online” or “typing…”) but an active signal—declaring who is here, how they appear, and under what rules they participate.

Presence Browser

A browser extension and web loadable SDK that enables people to have a visual presence in a sidebar as well as participate in a page-level chat.

Smart Tag

A typed, semantic annotation that attaches meaning to content—e.g. claims, bridges, notes, polls, challenges. Composable and filterable.

Bridge

A semantic connection between two pieces of content—often used to support, challenge, or contextualize claims across documents or domains. Each bridge has a relationship.

Agent

An automated or semi-autonomous process—such as an AI assistant, summarizer, recommender, or moderator. Within the Meta-Layer, all agents are subject to community-defined rules and must operate inside governed execution environments (e.g., TEEs). Their actions are logged, auditable, and revocable.

TEE (Trusted Execution Environment)

A secure, attestable runtime container where agent code is executed under overlay-defined constraints. TEEs are off-chain but can interact with smart contracts and they log agent events on a blockchain.

Governance Zone

A scope in which specific rule modules and participation logic apply—e.g., per overlay, tag context, or semantic domain.

Rule Module

A composable block of logic that defines interaction rights, moderation logic, tag visibility, agent behavior, etc.

Desirable Properties

A set of 20 guiding design signals—organized into thematic categories—that describe what the Meta-layer should support, protect, and enable.

Quantum Scalar

A future layer of infrastructure designed to be post-quantum resilient, supporting verifiable agent memory, cryptographic timekeeping, and semantic truth preservation.

Falstaff, Sir John (2025)

A semi-responsible advocate for the Meta-layer, reborn into the digital substrate from Shakespeare’s cultural cache. Now a verified (and verifiable) agent provocateur, Falstaff navigates overlays in search of real women, reputable wine, and agent-governed taverns. His presence reminds us that governance must serve joy, that protocols must support poetry, and that a badge is best earned with a song.