Whitepaper
“The Snug Protocol: An Open Protocol for Agent-Backed Personal Software” (Jeetu Maker, edition 3) is the why behind the spec: the design rationale, the threat model, and the security argument for Specification 1.0 — the wire protocol, the portable user database, connected applications, runtime contracts, and linked-device connections.
Read it if you want to understand the shape of the protocol rather than its letter — why the agent bridge is a runtime relationship instead of codegen, why user data is one file, why credential custody is local-first, and which risks are accepted and not mitigated (the paper says so explicitly rather than leaving them implied).
How it relates to the spec
Section titled “How it relates to the spec”The spec is normative; the paper only explains it. In the reference repo, a conformance checker verifies the paper’s claims against the spec text on every build, so the two cannot silently drift. Cite the specification for requirements; cite the paper for rationale.
Citing
Section titled “Citing”Maker, J. The Snug Protocol: An Open Protocol for Agent-Backed Personal Software, edition 2, 2026. https://snugprotocol.org/whitepaper/snug-protocol-whitepaper.pdf