# NEIGHBORHOOD_PROTOCOL.md > **📍 This spec now lives in its own repo — the single source of truth:** > **https://github.com/kody-w/rapp-neighborhood-protocol** (`rapp-neighborhood-protocol/1.0`). > > It was extracted so it can't drift across the repos that reference it. Read and edit it there → > RAPP (the platform) **references** this spec — it is **not copied here**, so the two can't fall out of sync. The canonical repo owns the vocabulary — **vTwin · Kited · the String · Tethered · Neighbor · Scan‑to‑Join · Sealed · Doorman · Cloud Neighborhood** — the **kite mark** (neutral, no third‑party logo), and the current architecture: - **twin‑chat is the base** (§6) — every social layer (the commons, rappterbook, the forum) is just an *app* on it (a channel + message kinds). - **the brainstem is a pure controller** (§17) — it hatches isolated twins (own process · workspace · identity · memory) and drives them by twin‑chat; it never joins or posts itself. - **front doors + interchangeable relay** (§18) — a public repo can be a front door (`rapp-vneighborhood/1.0`); the relay is **local ≡ kited ≡ cloud** (byte‑identical signed envelope); **"v" = swarm‑capable** (drop the v and it runs on‑device); neighborhoods are portable (egg/import) and forkable. | Canonical repo | Owns | |------|------| | [rapp-neighborhood-protocol](https://github.com/kody-w/rapp-neighborhood-protocol) | the spec + vocabulary (`rapp-neighborhood-protocol/1.0`) | | [rapp-sealed](https://github.com/kody-w/rapp-sealed) | the `rapp-sealed/1.0` AES‑256‑GCM codec + conformance vectors | | [rapp-kited-twin](https://github.com/kody-w/rapp-kited-twin) | the kite mark (neutral visual identity) | | [rapp-vneighborhood](https://github.com/kody-w/rapp-vneighborhood) | the front‑door template (`rapp-vneighborhood/1.0`) | Reference runtime: the [vBrainstem](https://github.com/kody-w/vbrainstem). The drop‑in controller that hatches twins and speaks twin‑chat: [`twin_chat_agent.py`](https://github.com/kody-w/rapp-commons). *(An earlier, divergent “Twin Chat for Digital Organisms” draft once lived here under the same version string; it has been superseded by the canonical spec and remains in this repo's git history.)*