TERSE proposes an open semantic state protocol for AI apps and agents
Defiant-Juice-2745 · reddit · 2026-07-23
A Reddit post argues that AI applications are still in a pre-JSON, pre-REST stage and proposes TERSE, an open semantic state language and protocol.
- The author compares today’s LLM app state handling to the early web era of ad hoc, incompatible formats.
- JSON is described as too token-heavy and awkward for AI state at scale; markdown and plain text are used instead, but editing them is clumsy.
- TERSE aims to let an AI query and mutate state in one tool call using a structured text format.
- Example syntax includes ? for querying state and # / ## style declarations for adding or changing structured content.
- The spec is open source and comes with brief primers for MCP tooling, with a GitHub repo linked in the post.
The post frames TERSE as a minimal, domain-agnostic state protocol that could reduce round-trips and better support agent memory systems.
Related event: TERSE: Open Source Semantic State Protocol for AI(2 posts)→
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