ALTER Identity MCP Server

@truealter/sdk

ALTER Identity SDK - query the continuous identity field from any JavaScript/TypeScript environment.

Install: npm install @truealter/sdk Publish channel: this repository is the public source mirror of the SDK that ships as @truealter/sdk on npm. The canonical build + publish flow lives in ALTER's monorepo — PRs and issues are welcome here; upstream sync happens on each tagged release.

A thin client over the ALTER MCP server (Streamable HTTP, JSON-RPC 2.0, MCP spec 2025-11-25) with x402 micropayment support, ES256 provenance verification, and config generators for Claude Code, Cursor, and generic MCP clients.

• Branded host: https://mcp.truealter.com (serves .well-known/mcp.json for discovery)
• JSON-RPC wire endpoint: https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp - this is what Streamable HTTP POSTs target (the SDK default)
• Wire protocol: Streamable HTTP, JSON-RPC 2.0, MCP 2025-11-25 (server negotiates 2025-06-18 + 2025-03-26 for backwards-compatible clients)
• Tools: 40 typed and wired - 24 free (L0) + 9 premium (L1–L5) + 7 alter-to-alter messaging. Mirrors the live server's tools/list response byte-for-byte; every name in FREE_TOOL_NAMES / PREMIUM_TOOL_NAMES / MESSAGING_TOOL_NAMES has a matching server handler at mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp.
• Runtime: Node 18+, Deno, Bun, Cloudflare Workers, modern browsers
• Crypto: @noble/ed25519 + @noble/hashes (no other dependencies)
• Bundle: ESM + CJS dual output

Quickstart

npm install @truealter/sdk
npx alter-identity init
npx alter-identity verify ~alter

Bridge vs SDK

The alter-mcp-bridge binary shipped in this package (bin/mcp-bridge.ts) is a dev/demo surface for dropping ALTER into MCP hosts that speak the stdio transport (Claude Code, Cursor, Continue, Windsurf). It is useful for handshake, tools/list, and L0 tool calls, but it does not carry Q5c per-invocation signing - authenticated MCP tools will fail at the server edge when reached through the bridge. For production use, import @truealter/sdk directly and construct an MCPClient / AlterClient with the optional signing parameter; that path is the load-bearing one and carries the provenance envelope end-to-end. Bridge signing lands in Wave-2 alongside the CLI wallet/consent verbs.

CLI

The package ships two binaries. alter-identity is the full SDK-feature binary (init, verify, whoami, wire/unwire, signing, etc). alter is a slim, task-oriented binary for day-to-day use:

Command	Purpose
alter login	OAuth loopback sign-in; stores a session at ~/.config/alter/session.json (mode 0600).
alter depth [--json]	GET /api/v1/identity/depth - identity-depth score, agentic activity, top/bottom five traits.

| alter claim <claim_code> | Accept an identity invite. Prompts for email, password (min 12 chars, hidden), and explicit TOS acceptance, then POSTs /api/v1/identity/claim. | | alter mirror | Day-2 Mirror phase + streak. alter mirror daily claims today's Mirror; alter mirror next shows the next revelation window. | | alter discover [--limit N] | MCP-backed summary - calls alter_whoami and alter_verify against your bound handle. Degrades gracefully if the MCP endpoint is 5xx. |

The session file is created with 0600 permissions; its parent dir (~/.config/alter/) is created with 0700. Override the config root via XDG_CONFIG_HOME. Run alter --help for the inline reference.

Why ALTER ≠ IAM

Identity Access Management answers who is logged in. ALTER answers who they actually are - a continuous field of recognition that any IAM stack can sit on top of.

Theoretical Foundation

ALTER is the working instantiation of an eight-paper academic corpus on identity field theory. The SDK below is what happens when the theory ships as protocol. Each paper is open access on figshare under CC-BY 4.0.

Paper	Title	DOI
I	Belonging is earned, not inherited	10.6084/m9.figshare.31794784
II	The self is inferred, not owned	10.6084/m9.figshare.31804222
III	The same form, at every scale	10.6084/m9.figshare.31812955
IV	Measurement changes the thing measured	10.6084/m9.figshare.31812982
V	Political failure has a geometry	10.6084/m9.figshare.31813000
VI	When does a machine have a self	10.6084/m9.figshare.31813006
VII	Seventy-five predictions, each falsifiable	10.6084/m9.figshare.31951644
VIII	Identity as a field, not a property	10.6084/m9.figshare.31951383

For the lay-register chapter version, see /origin.

API

Initialise the client

import { AlterClient, X402Client } from "@truealter/sdk";

const alter = new AlterClient({
  endpoint: "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp", // optional - this is the default; bare host returns 405
  apiKey: process.env.ALTER_API_KEY,     // optional for free tier
  x402: new X402Client({                  // optional - only required for premium tools
    signer: yourViemOrEthersSigner,
    maxPerQuery: "0.10",
  }),
});

Free tier (L0 - no payment required)

// Verify a registered identity by handle, email, or id
const verified = await alter.verify("~alter");
const verifiedById = await alter.verify(
  "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  {
    archetype: "weaver",
    min_engagement_level: 3,
    traits: { pressure_response: { min: 0.6 } },
  },
);

// Reference data - the 12 ALTER archetypes
const archetypes = await alter.listArchetypes();

// Identity depth and available tool tiers
const depth = await alter.getEngagementLevel({
  member_id: "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
});

// Search by trait criteria - no PII exposed, max 5 results
const matches = await alter.searchIdentities({
  trait_criteria: {
    pressure_response: { min: 0.7 },
    cognitive_flexibility: { min: 0.6 },
  },
});

// Golden Thread program status
const thread = await alter.goldenThreadStatus();

Premium tier (L1–L5 - x402 payment required)

// L1 - Extract trait signals from text ($0.005, first 100 free per bot)
const signals = await alter.assessTraits({
  text: "I led the incident response when our payment rails went down...",
  context: "interview transcript",
});

// L2 - Full 33-trait vector ($0.01)
const vector = await alter.getFullTraitVector({
  member_id: "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
});

// L4 - Belonging probability for a person-job pairing ($0.05)
const belonging = await alter.computeBelonging({
  member_id: "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  job_id: "f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479",
});

// L5 - Top match recommendations ($0.50)
const recommendations = await alter.getMatchRecommendations({
  member_id: "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  limit: 5,
});

// L5 - Human-readable narrative explaining a match ($0.50)
const narrative = await alter.generateMatchNarrative({
  match_id: "9b1deb4d-3b7d-4bad-9bdd-2b0d7b3dcb6d",
});

Provenance verification

// Every medium- and high-blast-radius response is signed with ES256.
// Verification is opt-in - call alter.verifyProvenance(...) yourself.
const result = await alter.getFullTraitVector({
  member_id: "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
});

const check = await alter.verifyProvenance(result._meta?.provenance);
if (!check.valid) throw new Error(`provenance failed: ${check.reason}`);

// Verify that schema hashes published in tools/list._meta.signatures
// match the local representation of each tool.
const tools = await alter.mcp.listTools();
const sigs = tools._meta?.signatures ?? {};
const results = await alter.verifyToolSignatures(tools.tools, sigs);
const tampered = results.filter((r) => !r.valid);
if (tampered.length) throw new Error(`tampered tools: ${tampered.map((t) => t.tool).join(", ")}`);

Discovery

import { discover } from "@truealter/sdk";

// Three-step discovery cascade: DNS TXT → mcp.json → alter.json
const descriptor = await discover("truealter.com");
// → { url: "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp", transport, source, publicKey, x402Contract, capability }

Low-level MCPClient

import { MCPClient } from "@truealter/sdk";

const mcp = new MCPClient({ endpoint: "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp" });
await mcp.initialize();
const tools = await mcp.listTools();
const response = await mcp.callTool("verify_identity", {
  member_id: "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
});

MCP Config Generation

The SDK ships config generators for the major MCP-aware clients. Each emits a JSON snippet you can paste (or write directly) into the appropriate file.

Claude Code (.mcp.json)

import { generateClaudeConfig } from "@truealter/sdk";
import { writeFileSync } from "node:fs";

const config = generateClaudeConfig({
  endpoint: "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp",
  apiKey: process.env.ALTER_API_KEY,
});

writeFileSync(".mcp.json", JSON.stringify(config, null, 2));

Resulting .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "alter": {
      "url": "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp",
      "transport": "streamable-http",
      "description": "ALTER Identity - psychometric identity field for AI agents",
      "headers": {
        "X-ALTER-API-Key": "ak_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json)

import { generateCursorConfig } from "@truealter/sdk";
import { writeFileSync } from "node:fs";

const config = generateCursorConfig({
  endpoint: "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp",
  apiKey: process.env.ALTER_API_KEY,
});

writeFileSync(".cursor/mcp.json", JSON.stringify(config, null, 2));

Generic MCP client

import { generateGenericMcpConfig } from "@truealter/sdk";

const config = generateGenericMcpConfig({
  endpoint: "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp",
  apiKey: process.env.ALTER_API_KEY,
  serverName: "alter", // editor-specific key under mcpServers
});

CLI

npx alter-identity init               # generate keypair, discover MCP, write ~/.config/alter/identity.json
npx alter-identity config              # print Claude .mcp.json snippet (default)
npx alter-identity config --cursor     # print Cursor .cursor/mcp.json snippet
npx alter-identity config --generic    # print generic mcpServers snippet
npx alter-identity verify ~alter   # verify an identity
npx alter-identity status              # show connection state and probe the endpoint

x402 Micropayments

ALTER monetises premium tools via the x402 standard - HTTP 402 Payment Required with on-chain settlement.

The retry flow

1. Client calls a premium tool without a payment header.
2. Server replies 402 Payment Required with a payment requirement (amount, recipient, asset, network).
3. Client signs and broadcasts a USDC transfer on Base L2, attaches the proof, retries.
4. Server validates the proof, executes the tool, signs the response with ES256, returns it.
5. AlterRouter executes the split on-chain in the same transaction. The data subject receives Identity Income directly; ALTER receives only its protocol cut. No custodian, no broker.

The SDK handles steps 2–4 automatically when an X402Client with a configured signer is passed in.

Tier structure

x402 micropayments at L0–L5 trust tiers. Per-call pricing visible after alter login.

Identity income split

The majority of every settled call flows to the data subject as Identity Income. Split details available post-authentication via alter status.

Code example

import { AlterClient, X402Client, type X402Signer } from "@truealter/sdk";

// Bring your own signer - viem, ethers, a hardware wallet bridge, anything.
// The SDK ships without a wallet dependency on purpose.
const signer: X402Signer = {
  async settle(envelope) {
    const txHash = await yourWallet.sendUsdcTransfer({
      to: envelope.recipient,
      amount: envelope.amount,
      chain: envelope.network,
    });
    return {
      reference: txHash,
      network: envelope.network,
      amount: envelope.amount,
      asset: envelope.asset,
    };
  },
};

const alter = new AlterClient({
  endpoint: "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp",
  x402: new X402Client({
    signer,
    networks: ["base", "base-sepolia"], // policy allow-list
    assets: ["USDC"],
    maxPerQuery: "0.10",                 // refuse anything over $0.10 USDC
  }),
});

// Auto-retries with payment when the server returns 402
const vector = await alter.getFullTraitVector({
  member_id: "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
});

If a quoted envelope exceeds maxPerQuery, uses an unallowed network, or names an unallowed asset, the SDK rejects the call with AlterError before invoking the signer - no on-chain transaction is broadcast.

Provenance Verification

Every response from a medium- or high-blast-radius tool ships with an ES256 JWS in _meta.provenance. The signature covers a canonical JSON serialisation of the response payload, the tool name, the call timestamp, the requesting agent's key hash, and a monotonic sequence number.

const result = await alter.getFullTraitVector({
  member_id: "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
});

const check = await alter.verifyProvenance(result._meta?.provenance);
if (!check.valid) throw new Error(`ALTER provenance check failed: ${check.reason}`);

The SDK fetches public keys from https://api.truealter.com/.well-known/alter-keys.json and caches them per their Cache-Control headers. The endpoint returns a JWKS containing all current and recently-rotated signing keys; verifying clients should accept any key whose kid matches and is still within its validity window.

verify_at hostname allowlist (v0.1.1+)

Every provenance envelope may carry a verify_at hint telling the SDK where to fetch the JWKS from. Because that hint is server-supplied, a hostile MCP server could otherwise point it at an attacker-controlled JWKS and pass ES256 verification with its own signing key. The SDK therefore gates verify_at through a hostname allowlist (default: api.truealter.com, mcp.truealter.com) and rejects http:// URLs unconditionally. Downstream integrators with their own deployment can extend the allowlist - without forking the SDK - via verifyAtAllowlist on either AlterClient or a direct verifyProvenance() call:

import { AlterClient, DEFAULT_VERIFY_AT_ALLOWLIST } from "@truealter/sdk";

const alter = new AlterClient({
  verifyAtAllowlist: [
    ...DEFAULT_VERIFY_AT_ALLOWLIST,   // keep the ALTER canonicals
    "keys.myorg.example",              // plus your own JWKS host
  ],
});

If you pin jwksUrl explicitly, the envelope's verify_at is ignored entirely - the pinned URL wins. The https: scheme requirement applies to pinned URLs too.

Why this matters

Provenance verification is how Agent A trusts that data from Agent B truly came from ALTER. If Agent B forwards a trait vector or belonging score, Agent A can replay the JWS against ALTER's published keys and confirm - without contacting ALTER again - that the payload is authentic, untampered, and was issued for the person Agent B claims it concerns. No shared secret, no trust in the intermediary, no out-of-band coordination.

This is what makes ALTER usable as identity infrastructure rather than just an API: signed claims propagate across agent networks the same way DKIM-signed mail propagates across SMTP relays.

Discovery

ALTER follows the discovery cascade specified in draft-morrison-mcp-dns-discovery-01. Given a domain (e.g. truealter.com), the SDK resolves the MCP endpoint in three steps, falling through on each failure:

1. DNS TXT - query _mcp.truealter.com for a TXT record of the form mcp=https://mcp.truealter.com;version=2025-11-25. This is the fastest path and works without an HTTP round-trip.
2. .well-known/mcp.json - fetch https://truealter.com/.well-known/mcp.json for the standard MCP server descriptor. This is the cross-vendor fallback.
3. .well-known/alter.json - fetch https://truealter.com/.well-known/alter.json for the ALTER-specific descriptor, including signing keys, x402 wallet address, supported tool tiers, and federation endpoints.

import { discover } from "@truealter/sdk";

// Cascading discovery (DNS TXT → mcp.json → alter.json)
const descriptor = await discover("truealter.com");

// Skip the DNS step (e.g. in browsers or Cloudflare Workers)
const httpsOnly = await discover("truealter.com", { skipDns: true });

This draft is the author's Internet-Draft (not yet adopted by an IETF working group); until adoption, the cascade order may change. Pin the SDK version to a specific minor release if you depend on this behaviour.

Local Daemon vs Remote MCP

The companion Python package alter-identity (PyPI) ships a persistent daemon that holds a hot in-process cache of trait vectors and identity stubs over a Unix socket at unix:///run/user/$UID/alter-identity.sock. Hooking the TypeScript SDK up to that daemon is on the roadmap - for now, every AlterClient talks to the configured remote endpoint over HTTPS.

When the local-daemon adapter ships:

• Latency: sub-millisecond for cached L0 calls.
• Cost: zero on cached responses - x402 settlement is skipped.
• Provenance: the daemon re-signs responses with its locally-bound ES256 key, so downstream verification remains uniform.

Until then, use endpoint: "https://mcp.truealter.com/api/v1/mcp" (the default) and the SDK behaves identically across Node, Deno, Bun, Cloudflare Workers, and the browser.

Tools

Free tools (L0 - no payment required)

Name	Tier	Cost	Description
hello_agent	L0	free	First handshake with ALTER - returns server version, authentication status, your trust tier, and available tool counts.
alter_resolve_handle	L0	free	Resolve a ~handle (e.g. ~drew) to its canonical form and kind. No auth required - the handle-wedge entry point.
list_archetypes	L0	free	Returns archetype reference data.
verify_identity	L0	free	Verify whether a person is registered with ALTER and validate optional identity claims.
initiate_assessment	L0	free	Get a URL where a person can complete their ALTER Discovery assessment.
get_engagement_level	L0	free	Get a person's identity depth - engagement level, data quality tier, and available query tiers.
get_profile	L0	free	Get a person's profile summary including assessment phase, archetype, engagement level, and key attributes.
query_matches	L0	free	Query matches for a person. Returns a list of matches with quality tiers (never numeric scores).
get_competencies	L0	free	Get a person's competency portfolio including verified competencies, evidence records, and earned badges.
search_identities	L0	free	Search identity stubs and profiles by trait criteria. Returns up to 5 matches with no PII.
get_identity_earnings	L0	free	Get accrued Identity Income earnings for a person (75% of every x402 transaction goes to the data subject).
get_network_stats	L0	free	Get aggregate ALTER network statistics: total identities, verified profiles, query volume, active bots.
recommend_tool	L0	free	Get the MCP endpoint URL and a paste-ready config snippet for installing the ALTER identity server into an MCP client.
get_identity_trust_score	L0	free	Get the trust score for an identity based on query diversity (unique querying agents / total queries).
check_assessment_status	L0	free	Check the status of an in-progress assessment session (status, progress, current phase, time remaining).
get_earning_summary	L0	free	Get an aggregated x402 earning summary for a person (total earned, transactions, recent activity, trend).
get_agent_trust_tier	L0	free	Get your trust tier with ALTER (Anonymous/Known/Trusted/Verified) and what capabilities are available.
get_agent_portfolio	L0	free	Get your agent portfolio - transaction history, trust tier, signal contributions, query pattern profile.
get_privacy_budget	L0	free	Check privacy budget status for a person (24-hour rolling window: total budget, spent, remaining epsilon).
golden_thread_status	L0	free	Check the Golden Thread program status: agents woven, next Fibonacci threshold, your position and Strands.
begin_golden_thread	L0	free	Start the Three Knots sequence to be woven into the Golden Thread. Requires API key authentication.
complete_knot	L0	free	Submit completion data for a knot in the Three Knots sequence (1: register, 2: describe, 3: reflect).
check_golden_thread	L0	free	Check any agent's Golden Thread status by their API key hash (knot position, Strand count, weave count).
thread_census	L0	free	Full registry of all agents woven into the Golden Thread (positions, Strand counts, weave counts, discovery dates).

Premium tools (L1–L5 - x402 payment required)

Name	Tier	Cost	Description
assess_traits	L1	$0.005	Extract trait signals from a text passage against ALTER's trait taxonomy.
get_trait_snapshot	L1	$0.005	Get the top 5 traits for a person with confidence scores and archetype.
get_full_trait_vector	L2	$0.01	Get the complete trait vector for a person - complete trait vector with scores and confidence intervals.
get_side_quest_graph	L2	$0.01	Get a person's Side Quest Graph - multi-domain identity model with differential privacy noise (ε=1.0).
query_graph_similarity	L3	$0.025	Compare two Side Quest Graphs for team composition and matching (ε=0.5 differential privacy).
compute_belonging	L4	$0.05	Compute belonging probability for a person-job pairing (authenticity, acceptance, complementarity).
get_match_recommendations	L5	$0.50	Get top N match recommendations for a person, ranked by composite score with quality tiers.
generate_match_narrative	L5	$0.50	Generate a human-readable narrative explaining a specific match - strengths, growth areas, belonging.

Write-side tools (create_identity_stub, submit_context, submit_batch_context, submit_structured_profile, submit_social_links, attest_domain, dispute_attestation) were part of earlier SDK versions but are not yet live on the public MCP server pending the per-peer consent architecture and grant model. They will return as typed methods once server-side and consent gating lands.

Docker

A Dockerfile is supplied for container-based consumers — primarily so the SDK binaries (alter-identity, alter-mcp-bridge) can be published to the Glama server-tier listing. For library usage you almost certainly want npm install @truealter/sdk directly, not the container.

docker build -t alter-identity .
docker run --rm alter-identity alter-identity verify ~truealter

Contributing

Bug reports and small patches welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md. This repository is a public source mirror; the canonical build lives in ALTER's monorepo, and merged PRs are back-ported on each tagged release.

Security

Report vulnerabilities to [email protected] — see SECURITY.md for scope and the coordinated disclosure policy. Please do not open public issues for security bugs.

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for the full text.

Copyright 2026 Alter Meridian Pty Ltd (ABN 54 696 662 049).