Most record formats are built for storage. A workpad record is built for travel.

The distinction matters. When a format is built for storage, it assumes a server will receive it, a database will hold it, and a client will retrieve it on demand. Connectivity is a given. The record is a description of state that lives somewhere else.

A workpad record assumes none of that. The record is the transmission. It encodes a complete business transaction — service description, parties, status, financial terms — into a URL hash fragment small enough to fit in an SMS message. When the URL travels, the record travels with it.

Why this matters for emerging markets

In much of the world, reliable internet connectivity is intermittent or expensive. A feature phone with a data plan may get SMS reliably but not HTTP. A QR code scanned at a market stall doesn’t require a working server at the other end.

The Workpads codec (§5) is designed with these constraints in mind:

  • Binary packing over text serialization — no JSON, no XML bloat
  • Sparse field encoding — absent fields cost nothing
  • URL-safe output — the hash fragment survives copy-paste across SMS, WhatsApp, and QR codes
  • No server round-trip required to decode

A record generated on a KaiOS phone in Lagos can be decoded on a web browser in Louisville without either party having an account, a server, or an internet connection at the moment of transfer.

The atomic record

The atomic unit of the format is the workpad record: a single document capturing one piece of work. By design, it is:

  • Complete — enough information to understand the transaction without external lookup
  • Compact — small enough to travel as a URL fragment over any channel
  • Honest — the record’s status field (open, active, complete) reflects its actual state
  • Sovereign — it belongs to its creator, not to a platform

These four properties, defined in §1 — PADS Data Model, are not aspirational. They are enforced by the encoding: a workpad URL that omits the service description is malformed. A workpad URL that requires a server lookup to decode violates the sovereign property.

Building on the standard

The record format is open. The Workpads Standard v0.1 defines what a workpad record is and how it is encoded. What you build with that is yours.

Read the Standard →