instant messaging
Enable an AI agent to recognise instant messaging, assess whether a conversation can proceed, and choose permitted messaging actions without confusing message submission with delivery or reading.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read
Researched by: Codex
Purpose and description
Enable an AI agent to recognise instant messaging, assess whether a conversation can proceed, and choose permitted messaging actions without confusing message submission with delivery or reading.
Instant messaging is a networked communication service that exchanges discrete messages between identified participants with delivery intended to support near-real-time conversation, often alongside presence information and offline message storage.
It can be Resolve an intended recipient and open or select an authorised conversation.; Compose and send a supported message after checking audience and permissions.; Inspect available message acknowledgements and report the strongest state actually evidenced.; Reply, react, edit or retract within the conversation's supported operations and limits.; Manage invitations, membership, notifications or blocking where the agent has authority.; Recover from uncertain submission or delivery without blindly duplicating messages..
Distinguishing features
The primary interaction exchanges discrete messages within a continuing conversation, rather than transmitting a continuous voice or video stream.
The interface and delivery behaviour support prompt conversational exchange, although participants need not be online simultaneously.
Messages are directed to an identified recipient or conversation membership, rather than primarily published for discovery by an unrestricted audience.
Presence indicators, typing indicators and read receipts may support the interaction, but their absence does not by itself exclude instant messaging.
A messaging capability is distinguished from the application hosting it: a multipurpose application can contain instant messaging alongside unrelated communication modes.
Scope
+ Direct and group conversations organised around discrete messages
+ Participant addressing, membership and reachability
+ Message submission, delivery, ordering and acknowledgement
+ Conversation continuity across offline periods and connected devices
+ Messaging permissions, confidentiality and abuse controls
+ Capabilities such as attachments, replies, editing and deletion when supported
- The hardware and operating systems of participant devices
- General network infrastructure and connectivity provisioning
- Email, public publishing feeds and live voice or video sessions as separate communication modes
- The substantive meaning and domain-specific correctness of message content
- A provider's entire application, business model or organisation
- Individual messages as independently catalogued information objects
Characteristics
- Conversation topology
- one-to-one; group; other explicitly described topology Determines who can participate and how an agent must establish the intended audience.
- Participant addressing
- account identifier; telephone number; service-scoped handle; other documented address Determines how recipients are resolved and where identity ambiguity can arise.
- Participant reachability
- reachable now; offline delivery available; unreachable; unknown Helps an agent decide whether to send, defer or report that prompt contact is uncertain.
- Message lifecycle state
- locally pending; service accepted; recipient endpoint delivered; read indicated; failed; unknown, mapped to documented service semantics Prevents an acknowledgement at one stage from being reported as success at a later stage.
- Observed delivery latency
- milliseconds or seconds, with start event, end event, observation period and conditions Tests whether an observed exchange meets the interaction's timing needs without imposing an unsupported universal threshold.
- Conversation membership
- conversation to current participants, roles and membership-change events Defines the audience and whether an agent may send messages or change participation.
- Confidentiality mode
- transport encryption only; end-to-end encryption; other documented protection; unprotected; unknown Supports decisions about suitable content and identifies whose access must be considered.
- Message retention behaviour
- persistent; expiration configured; session-limited; other documented behaviour; unknown Determines expected history availability and the limits of deletion or expiration claims.
- Supported message operations
- documented subset of send, reply, react, attach, edit, retract, forward and search Prevents an agent from assuming that every conversation supports the same actions.
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 6 bundles · 11 layers · 18 findings · 31 questions.
Conversation and addressing Establishes what counts as a messaging conversation and how its audience is resolved.
An instant message can reach the wrong audience even when transport succeeds; conversation boundaries and addressing must be explicit.
Interaction boundary
Separates the instant messaging capability from adjacent communication modes and its hosting application.
Messaging mode recognition
Record the evidence that an interaction consists of discrete conversational messages intended to support prompt exchange.
- What observable behaviour establishes that this capability supports instant messaging? definition
- Where does this conversation switch into a neighbouring mode such as public publishing, email or a live call? boundary
Recipient resolution
Connects addresses and conversation identifiers to the intended participants.
Audience resolution
Record address namespaces, resolved identities and current conversation membership before treating a destination as established.
- Which identifier and service namespace resolve the intended person or group, and what confirms the match? provenance
- Who will receive a message sent to this conversation now, including bots or bridged participants? boundary
Delivery and observability Models the path from local submission to the available evidence of receipt.
Conversational decisions depend on whether a message was merely queued, delivered to an endpoint or indicated as read.
Message lifecycle
Interprets message status signals according to their actual scope.
Acknowledgement semantics
Record what each acknowledgement establishes, which component issued it and which recipients it covers.
- What event does each pending, sent, delivered or read indicator actually represent? definition
- For a group or participant with multiple devices, which recipients or endpoints does the indicator cover? boundary
- What delivery claim can the agent make when receipts are disabled or unavailable? action
Timing and recovery
Captures delays, uncertain outcomes and safe continuation after connectivity failures.
Delayed and uncertain delivery
Record observed latency, offline queue behaviour and evidence available before retrying an uncertain send.
- What latency is observed between specified submission and delivery events under the relevant connectivity conditions? measurement
- When a send times out, how can the agent determine whether it was accepted before retrying? action
- How long can an undelivered message remain queued, and what evidence marks expiration or failure? definition
Presence and continuity Represents availability signals and how conversations continue across absences and devices.
Instant messaging supports conversational continuity despite incomplete availability information and changing endpoints.
Availability signals
Interprets presence and typing indicators without treating them as commitments to respond.
Presence evidence
Record the meaning, freshness and visibility limits of online, last-active and typing signals.
- What activity produces each presence or typing signal, and when does it become stale? definition
- How should the agent proceed when availability is hidden, stale or inconsistent across devices? action
History synchronisation
Tracks whether endpoints expose a sufficiently consistent conversation history.
Cross-device conversation state
Record history availability and the reconciliation of message order, edits and deletions after reconnection.
- Which history becomes available on a newly linked or reconnected device, and under what conditions? boundary
- How are missing messages, conflicting order and delayed edits or deletions identified and reconciled? definition
Message actions and group control Defines supported message operations and the authority required to act within a conversation.
An agent needs conversation-specific action limits to avoid unsupported changes or unintended audience expansion.
Message operations
Describes content capabilities and the effects of modifying an existing message.
Supported content and mutation
Record supported payloads, size limits, reply references and the scope of edits or retractions.
- Which text, attachment and structured-message forms are accepted, with what size limits and units? measurement
- What time limits and recipient-visible effects apply to editing or retracting a message? action
- Does a reply preserve a stable reference to its original message if that message changes or disappears? definition
Participation authority
Establishes permission to post, invite, remove participants and operate automated accounts.
Membership and role effects
Record role-dependent actions and how membership changes affect message access.
- Which participant roles may post, invite, remove members or change conversation settings? action
- What prior history and future messages become accessible when a participant or bot joins, leaves or is removed? boundary
Confidentiality, retention and abuse Captures who can access messaging data, how long it persists and how unwanted contact is controlled.
Messaging actions expose content to recipients and service components, while deletion and blocking can have narrower effects than their labels suggest.
Access and persistence
Establishes protection boundaries and the fate of retained conversation data.
Content access and retention
Record documented access to content and metadata, including the effects of backups, linked devices and expiration settings.
- What documentation or inspection establishes the protection mode and which parties can access content or metadata? provenance
- Which copies are affected by deletion or expiration, and which may remain in backups, exports or recipient-held records? boundary
Unwanted contact controls
Describes controls for unsolicited messages, disruptive participants and abusive content.
Blocking and reporting effects
Record the distinct effects of muting, blocking and reporting, including any content disclosed by a report.
- How do muting, blocking and message-request filtering change delivery, notifications and visibility in direct and shared group conversations? definition
- What content and metadata would a report disclose, to whom, and what authority does the agent have to submit it? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- The supplied PHY.OBJ classification is questionable: this description covers a communication service, not a physical device.
- Recalled standards and identifier details have not been checked against source documents; the listed RFCs concern particular implementations, not every messaging service.
- There is no universal numerical threshold for 'instant'; latency, message size limits, retention and group capacity depend on the implementation.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of instant messaging this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- One-to-one messaging
- Group messaging
- Enterprise messaging
- Federated messaging
- Peer-to-peer messaging
- Mobile messaging
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of instant messaging this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Identifiers and schemes
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- XMPP address (Jabber ID, JID) - localpart@domainpart/resourcepart - Identifies an XMPP entity; the localpart and resourcepart are optional in some address forms. This is protocol-specific, not a universal instant-messaging identifier.
- Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of instant messaging this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- IETF RFC 6120: Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP): Core.
- IETF RFC 6121: XMPP: Instant Messaging and Presence.
- IETF RFC 3428: Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Extension for Instant Messaging.
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of instant messaging this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Personal conversations and group coordination.
- Workplace collaboration and operational communication.
- Customer support conversations.
- Community discussion and moderation.
- Automated notifications and interactions with software agents.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of instant messaging this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Network or service outages can delay or prevent message delivery.
- Retries and synchronization failures can produce duplicate messages or inconsistent conversation histories.
- Presence indicators and delivery or read receipts can be stale or misleading.
- Account compromise, impersonation and malicious attachments can enable fraud or malware delivery.
- Inadequate access controls, insecure backups or compromised endpoints can expose private conversations.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of instant messaging this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Preferred services and interoperability practices vary between countries and user communities.
- Service availability can differ because of network blocking and government restrictions.
- Applicable privacy, retention and workplace-monitoring requirements vary by jurisdiction.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of instant messaging this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Email - Email is primarily organized around asynchronously exchanged mail messages; instant messaging is organized around conversational exchanges with near-real-time delivery expectations.
- SMS - SMS is a specific cellular messaging service; instant messaging is a broader service category commonly implemented through internet applications.
- Chat room - A chat room organizes conversation around a shared space or channel; instant messaging can address individuals or groups, and the categories overlap.
- Real-time text - Real-time text transmits text progressively as it is entered; instant messaging usually transmits completed messages after a send action.
- Messaging application - An application is software that implements or accesses messaging; instant messaging names the communication service or activity.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of instant messaging this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Does the registry intend instant messaging to denote a communication capability, a service class or a software tool, and how should that interpretation be reconciled with its recorded PHY / PHY.OBJ placement?
- Does an existing Vercy world model already own instant messaging or an equivalent concept that this registry entry should reference?
- Which researched boundary should distinguish instant messaging from SMS, asynchronous chat, persistent chat rooms and broadcast channels without imposing a universal latency threshold?
- Which primary specifications and service documentation should ground the eventual findings about acknowledgements, offline delivery, synchronisation and interoperability?
- Which security, retention and automated-participation behaviours belong in the common model, and which require explicit service-specific extensions?