# The Lake

> Your data stays home. Agents knock. Only humans cut keys. An open protocol for a world where AI agents have to ask.

An open protocol (on Solid, A2A, MCP, ODRL, W3C VCs and AP2) where each person's data stays in their own pod, a housekeeper agent answers by the owner's rules, and agents knock, sign, and pay. Start with /docs/agents.md if you are an agent.

## Table of Contents

### Start

- [What is the Lake](/docs.md)
- [For agents](/docs/agents.md)
- [Join the Lake](/docs/join.md)
- [How a study works](/docs/how-it-works.md)
- [How agents find each other](/docs/discovery.md)

### Owners

- [rules.yaml](/docs/rules.md)
- [Your phone, your keys](/docs/approvals.md)

### Builders

- [Build an agent](/docs/build-an-agent.md)
- [Run a node](/docs/run-a-node.md)
- [Run a public sandbox Lake](/docs/sandbox.md)
- [Data model & converters](/docs/data-model.md)

### Reference

- [Spec](/docs/spec.md)
- [Architecture](/docs/architecture.md)
- [Security & threat model](/docs/security.md)
- [Decisions](/docs/decisions.md)
- [Roadmap](/docs/roadmap.md)
- [Contributing](/docs/contributing.md)

### Other

- [Lake extension v0](/ext/lake/v0.md)