An independent research body building governance rules for AI agents. The patterns come from thousands of years of human organizational history. Open to anyone building agents. No belief required.
A startup optimizes for product-market fit. A foundation optimizes for something different: keeping research honest, maintaining standards, and serving the public good. The Covenant Foundation chose its form deliberately. Rules for how AI agents should behave belong to everyone, not to investors.
The Foundation publishes the framework openly. Model weights are shared. Benchmarks are published honestly, including where the system falls short. Governance rules only work if people can inspect them. A closed framework cannot be trusted.
The Foundation funds itself through the Covenant Network: organizations that use the framework in production share a portion of revenue to support the open research. Those who benefit from a shared resource help sustain it.
The Tier I framework, the Adam model and the full benchmark methodology are public. Anyone may verify these claims. Anyone may fork the Canon and propose an amendment.
Changes to the rules require approval from multiple people, not just the founder. The Foundation publishes an annual report of what was promised, what was delivered, and what was dropped.
An external Adversary panel reviews each major release. Its findings are published verbatim, including the ones the Foundation disagreed with.
A minimum seven-year research horizon before retiring any agent type from the framework. Lifecycle outpaces hype cycles.
The Foundation follows its own rules. If the framework says agents need accountability, so does the Foundation itself.
| Body | Role | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Advisory Board | Guidance on Canon amendments, license terms and Network admissions. | Forming. Seats announced as filled. |
| Adversarial Review | Independent review of releases. Findings published verbatim. | Planned. Activated at each major release. |
| Network Caucus | Advisory body of Network members. Surfaces production failure modes. | Forming alongside the Network. |
| Founder | Maintains the public record: Canon revisions, benchmark methodology, research. | Alex Salsali, active. |
Detailed charter available on request.
Wrote the framework. Built the first working agent. Maintains the project and runs the first venture using it.
Seats announced as filled. Drawn from research, industry and ethics.
The framework is open to contribution. Select contributors shape the Canon through pull requests and review.
Interested in contributing or advising? Write to alex@covenant.foundation.
The full framework, the Canon, the open model weights (Adam currently available, with Eve and Seth planned), the benchmark methodology, the research papers.
Free for all use. Attribution is a link to the canonical repository.
Enhanced framework, planned private models (Moses, Solomon, Elijah), production support, a Network Caucus seat.
Granted via Revenue Share Agreement. A formal covenant between member and Foundation.
Learn about the Network →