Overview

The ALTAR Productivity Platform for AI Agents

From Local Development to Enterprise-Grade Production, Seamlessly.
ALTAR bridges the gap between the rapid prototyping of open-source AI frameworks and the security, governance, and scale required for enterprise deployment.

The Challenge: The Gap Between AI Development and Production

The AI agent ecosystem is exploding. Developers love the flexibility and rapid iteration of open-source frameworks like LangChain, Semantic Kernel, and CrewAI. They make it easy to build powerful tools on a local machine.

But moving from a local prototype to a secure, scalable, and compliant enterprise application is a massive leap. This creates a costly integration gap where engineering teams spend months building custom infrastructure for:

Security: How do you prevent a compromised agent from accessing unauthorized tools or data?
Governance: How do you enforce access control, audit tool usage, and manage the lifecycle of tool contracts?
Scalability: How do you run polyglot tools written in Python, Go, and TypeScript and scale them independently?
Operations: How do you manage deployment, observability, and state for distributed AI systems?

This is where ALTAR comes in.

The Solution: A Seamless Promotion Path

ALTAR is a productivity platform designed to bridge this gap. It provides a seamless promotion path for your AI tools, allowing you to move from local development to a distributed, enterprise-grade production environment with a simple configuration change.

Our architecture is designed to facilitate this journey:

%%{
  init: {
    'theme': 'base',
    'themeVariables': {
      'background': '#ffffff',
      'primaryColor': '#f8fafc',
      'primaryTextColor': '#1e293b',
      'lineColor': '#64748b',
      'secondaryColor': '#e2e8f0',
      'tertiaryColor': '#f1f5f9',
      'primaryBorderColor': '#e2e8f0',
      'secondaryBorderColor': '#cbd5e1',
      'tertiaryBorderColor': '#94a3b8'
    }
  }
}%%
graph TD
    subgraph "The ALTAR Ecosystem"
        
        subgraph "1 - Develop Locally"
            LATER["**LATER Protocol**<br/><i>The Frictionless On-Ramp</i><br/>Build and test tools in-process.<br/>Integrates with your existing frameworks."]
        end
        
        subgraph "2 - Deploy to Production"
            GRID["**GRID Protocol**<br/><i>The Secure Backend</i><br/>Run tools on a distributed, secure, and<br/>governed production runtime."]
        end

        subgraph "Underpinned By"
            ADM["**ALTAR Data Model (ADM)**<br/><i>The Universal Contract</i><br/>A shared, interoperable schema<br/>that makes the promotion path possible."]
        end
    end
    
    LATER -- "Promote with a config change" --> GRID
    LATER -- "Implements" --> ADM
    GRID -- "Implements" --> ADM

    style LATER fill:#059669,stroke:#047857,color:#ffffff,fontWeight:bold
    style GRID fill:#be123c,stroke:#9f1239,color:#ffffff,fontWeight:bold
    style ADM fill:#4338ca,stroke:#3730a3,color:#ffffff

LATER Protocol: The Frictionless On-Ramp. LATER provides a best-in-class developer experience for building and testing tools locally. With built-in adapters for popular frameworks, you can use your existing tools without a rewrite.
GRID Protocol: The Secure Production Backend. GRID provides the managed, secure fulfillment layer for your tools. It solves the hard problems of distributed systems—security, governance, and scalability—out of the box.
ALTAR Data Model (ADM): The Universal Contract. By adopting and standardizing industry patterns, the ADM ensures a tool defined once can be understood and executed by both the LATER and GRID protocols, making the promotion path seamless.

Getting Started with the Elixir Implementation

This repository contains the canonical Elixir implementation of the ALTAR protocol. You can use it today to build robust, locally-executed tools in your Elixir applications.

1. Installation

Add altar to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:altar, "~> 0.1.2"}
  ]
end

2. Add the Supervisor

To use the local runtime, add the Altar.Supervisor to your application's supervision tree. This starts the named Registry process.

# in your application.ex
children = [
  {Altar.Supervisor, name: MyApp.AltarSupervisor}
]

3. Define and Register a Tool

Create a module for your tools. Then, in your application's startup logic, create a validated FunctionDeclaration and register your tool's implementation with the Registry.

defmodule MyApp.Tools do
  # A simple tool function that accepts a map of arguments.
  def get_weather(%{"location" => location, "unit" => unit}) do
    # ... logic to fetch weather ...
    %{temperature: 72, unit: unit, forecast: "Sunny"}
  end
end

# In your application startup or an initializer
{:ok, decl} = Altar.ADM.new_function_declaration(%{
  name: "get_weather",
  description: "Gets the current weather for a specified location.",
  parameters: %{}
})

:ok = Altar.LATER.Registry.register_tool(
  Altar.LATER.Registry, # The globally registered name
  decl,
  &MyApp.Tools.get_weather/1
)

4. Execute a Tool

Simulate an LLM's request by creating a FunctionCall and passing it to the Executor.

{:ok, call} = Altar.ADM.new_function_call(%{
  call_id: "call_123",
  name: "get_weather",
  args: %{"location" => "Honolulu, HI", "unit" => "fahrenheit"}
})

# The executor is stateless and pure
{:ok, result} = Altar.LATER.Executor.execute_tool(Altar.LATER.Registry, call)

# result is now a validated %Altar.ADM.ToolResult{}
# %Altar.ADM.ToolResult{
#   call_id: "call_123",
#   content: %{temperature: 72, unit: "fahrenheit", forecast: "Sunny"},
#   is_error: false
# }

Project Status & Roadmap

This monorepo contains both the protocol specifications and the canonical Elixir implementation.

✅ Protocol Specifications (v1.0): The specs for ADM, LATER, and GRID are complete and can be found in the /specs directory. They represent a stable vision.
✅ Elixir Implementation (/lib):
- Altar.ADM: Complete and fully tested.
- Altar.LATER: Core Registry and Executor are complete and fully tested.
- Altar.GRID Host: Under active development.
⏳ Reference Runtimes (/runtimes): Reference implementations for other languages (Python, TypeScript) are planned and will reside in this repository.

Protocol Specifications

The complete protocol specifications can be found in the specs/ directory. They have been updated to reflect the platform's focus on productivity and interoperability.

01-data-model/data-model.md: The core ALTAR Data Model (ADM).
02-later-protocol/later-protocol.md: The LATER protocol for local execution.
03-grid-protocol/grid-protocol.md: The GRID protocol for distributed execution.
- aesp.md: The Enterprise Security Profile for GRID.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

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