Hyperflow specification

Hyperflow is an agentic extension of hypermedia.

Scope

This specification defines Hyperflow's concepts, their relationships, and conceptual behavior. It gives web developers, web tool developers, and their agents a shared basis for building and evaluating implementations. Technical implementation and interface design are outside its scope.

Hyperflow remains a proposal. The definitions and behavior described here establish its current meaning and are open to deliberate revision.

The paradigm

Hyperflow encompasses working with material on a webpage through Markup and Markup Notes, saving them, requesting agentic work, and using the resulting webpages. The name refers to this whole paradigm.

The person selects the material and contributes the words attached to it. An explicit request starts agentic work from that saved material and note. The work produces a regular, complete webpage for the person to explore and use. Selecting, saving, generation, and navigation are actions within Hyperflow.

Web material

Web material is the content a person encounters on a webpage. It can include text, images, video, sound, and other hypermedia. A selection identifies the material the person is working with: a passage, an image or part of an image, a moment or interval in video or sound, or another identifiable part.

The selected material supplies the subject for the person's attached words. Understanding those words depends on understanding what they refer to. For example, “Explain this step” can concern a selected instruction in a written guide or an action shown in a selected interval of video. The same words refer to different material in each case.

The relationship between a selection and its surrounding material also contributes meaning. A passage belongs to a document; a detail belongs to an image; an interval belongs to a sequence. Selection identifies the subject of the person's words within that setting.

Markup

A Markup is the highlight on material a person selects. It identifies the material to which the person's Markup Note is attached.

The selected material, its Markup, and its Markup Note have distinct roles. In a highlighted paragraph, the paragraph supplies the material, the highlight is the Markup, and the attached words are the Markup Note. Highlighting an image region establishes the same relationship with visual material.

Saving a Markup

Saving retains the Markup and its Markup Note together. This keeps the person's words associated with the material they selected. The saved Markup and Markup Note can be inspected without requesting agentic work.

Saving does not start generation. The person separately requests work from the saved material and note.

Managing a Markup

A person can revise the attached Markup Note and save their changes. They can also delete the Markup, removing its highlight and attached Markup Note without deleting the underlying web material.

These actions concern what the person has saved. Inspecting, revising, saving, or deleting a Markup does not by itself request generation.

Markup Note

A Markup Note is the person's written note attached to a Markup. It expresses what the person has to say or asks to have done in relation to the selected material. It can contain a question, an observation, or a direction for agentic work.

The attachment connects the words to their subject. A Markup Note can therefore refer to the selected material without restating it. “Explain this for a beginner” takes its subject from the material identified by the Markup.

The person's words also distinguish different uses of the same material. In one illustrative use of a passage, the Markup Note might say “Explain this for a beginner.” In another use of that passage, it might say “Challenge this argument.” Both concern the same text, but they ask for different work. The selected material and the Markup Note contribute together to what generation addresses.

Generation

Generation is the agentic work started by a person's explicit request using the saved material and Markup Note. The material provides the subject, and the person's words guide the work in relation to it.

The generation request

The request initiates an agentic workflow. It is separate from selecting material, writing a Markup Note, and saving. A person who saves without requesting generation has retained their Markup and Markup Note without starting that work.

Agentic work

The agent works with the selected material in light of the Markup Note to produce a complete webpage. The note might ask for an explanation, a comparison, an adaptation, or other work concerning that material.

For example, a person could select a configuration example in documentation and attach the Markup Note “Adapt this for an environment with two application servers.” A generation request from that saved material and note could produce a webpage explaining an adapted configuration.

Generated webpages

A generated webpage is the regular, complete webpage produced by the agentic work. It gives the result a form the person can read, explore, and use. “Generated” identifies how the webpage came into being; the page remains part of the web.

The page's content serves the work requested from the selected material and Markup Note. It could be an explanation, a comparison, a plan, a tool, or another useful webpage. These illustrate possible results within the paradigm.

Continued browsing

The resulting webpage can itself provide material for a Markup and Markup Note. The person can select something there, attach their words, save them, and request further work. The same concepts apply when the selected material is on a page produced through Hyperflow.

Ordinary links can also lead onward. Links and Markups can coexist within the same webpage and the same browsing experience.

This text is dedicated to the public domain (CC0 1.0). Hyperflow™ is claimed as a trademark. · hyperflow.org