SUIP Manifesto

Simple Unified Internet Protocol — Version 0.1

"The internet protocols we use today carry 30+ years of legacy baggage. What if we could start fresh, keeping the lessons learned but leaving the bloat behind?"

The Problem

HTTP was designed in 1991 for sharing hypertext documents. Since then, it has been extended, patched, and retrofitted to handle everything from streaming video to real-time chat to REST APIs. The result is a protocol that:

Uses variable-length text headers that must be parsed character by character
Has ~40 status codes, many of which are ambiguous or rarely used
Requires separate protocols (WebSocket) for bidirectional communication
Needs external specifications (OpenAPI) for self-documentation
Carries decades of backward-compatible cruft

We are not here to replace HTTP. We are here to explore what a protocol designed today, from scratch, might look like.

The Vision

SUIP (Simple Unified Internet Protocol) is an experimental protocol built on four principles:

1. Simplicity First

The core protocol must be simple enough to understand in one evening and implement in a weekend. Complexity belongs in optional extensions, not in the foundation.

2. Self-Describing

A protocol should explain itself. Clients should be able to discover server capabilities without external documentation. Servers should advertise what they can do.

3. Extensible Without Fragmentation

Extensions should be standardized patterns, not ad-hoc additions. A CRUD API, a streaming service, and a pub/sub system should all use recognizable, universal patterns.

4. Developer-Friendly

If it's hard to implement, it's wrong. The reference implementation should be under 2000 lines. The specification should be clear, concise, and practical.

The Protocol

SUIP uses a fixed 12-byte binary header followed by a variable-length body:

Byte 0:    Protocol Version (0x01)
Byte 1:    Message Type (REQUEST / RESPONSE / ERROR)
Byte 2:    Operation (FETCH / STORE / LIST / INFO)
Byte 3:    Status Code (SUCCESS / NOT_FOUND / etc.)
Byte 4:    Content Type (TEXT / BINARY / XML / STRUCTURED_PATH)
Byte 5:    Flags (compression, keep-alive, priority)
Bytes 6-7: Reserved
Bytes 8-11: Content Length (big-endian)

That's it. No parsing ambiguity. No variable-length headers. No text encoding issues.

URL Scheme

suip://host[:port]/path

Default port: 2802. Transport: TCP.

Operations

Code	Name	Purpose
0x01	FETCH	Retrieve a resource
0x02	STORE	Save a resource
0x03	LIST	List available resources
0x04	INFO	Get resource metadata

Status Codes

Code	Name
0x00	SUCCESS
0x01	NOT_FOUND
0x02	ACCESS_DENIED
0x03	SERVER_FAULT
0x04	INVALID_REQUEST
0x05	UNSUPPORTED_OPERATION

Six status codes. That's all you need for MVP.

The Markup

SUIP defines a minimal XML-based markup for content:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<page>
  <container>
    <text class="heading">Welcome to SUIP</text>
    <text>A simple page with no JavaScript, no CSS frameworks, no bloat.</text>
    <link href="suip://localhost/about.xml">Learn more</link>
  </container>
</page>

Four elements: <page>, <container>, <text>, <link>. Everything else is an extension.

Extensions

The core protocol is intentionally minimal. Additional functionality comes through standardized extensions:

CRUD Pattern — REST-like resource management
Streaming Pattern — One-way data streams
PubSub Pattern — Publish/subscribe for real-time events
RPC Pattern — Remote procedure calls
Query Pattern — Flexible data queries

Servers advertise their capabilities through /.well-known/capabilities. Clients adapt automatically.

What SUIP Is Not

Not an HTTP replacement. HTTP works. SUIP is an experiment.
Not production-ready. Version 0.1 has no encryption, no authentication, no extensive testing.
Not a standard. This is a community-driven exploration, open to radical changes.

What SUIP Is

An exercise in protocol design from first principles
A playground for experimenting with self-describing protocols
A simple foundation that can grow through extensions
An invitation to think differently about how we communicate over networks

Roadmap

v0.1 — Core protocol, FETCH operation, basic markup ✓
... — ???
... — ???
... — ???
v1.0 — Production-ready, comprehensive testing, RFC consideration

Join the Experiment

SUIP is open source. Whether you're a protocol designer, an implementer, or simply curious about how the internet works — you're welcome to contribute.

Review the specification
Build a client in your favorite language
Propose extensions
Challenge our assumptions