Help define a trustworthy layer above the Web

Today's Web often feels like a flat surface of pages, feeds, apps, and platforms. The Metaweb asks us to see the Web as a multi-layered environment where people, knowledge, interactions, and governance can have presence above the webpage.

The Meta-Layer is a community-governed coordination layer above today's Web: a shared digital atmosphere for context, trust, memory, and collective intelligence without replacing the content you already use.

• Context
• Presence
• Trust
• Governance

Read the full framing on About or in the opening chapter of The Layered Web: The Desirable Properties of a Meta-Layer.

The Metaweb: The Next Level of the Internet introduced the layered Web as a safe, AI-aware environment for privacy, accountability, collaboration, and collective intelligence. That vision catalyzed a public build process: if there is to be a layer above the Web, how should it be designed, governed, and evaluated?

1. Step 1

   Book

   A new way to see the Web

   Learn more →
2. Step 2

   Kickoff

   A shared design question

   Learn more →
3. Step 3

   DPs

   Public design criteria

   Learn more →
4. Step 4

   Requirements

   Testable obligations

   Learn more →
5. Step 5

   Substrate

   Shared infrastructure

   Learn more →

The September 2024 kickoff with Vint Cerf named an essay on desirable properties as the first milestone. See the kickoff summary and the full challenge timeline.

Before requirements, technical specs, or architecture decisions, the community needs shared criteria. What makes this layer desirable? What harms must it avoid? What capacities must it enable?

That question launches the Desirable Properties Challenge: refine, debate, test, and improve living drafts on the path toward Version 1.0 and substrate work.

A Desirable Property (DP) is a public design criterion for the layer above the Web. It describes a condition the Meta-Layer should satisfy: whatever we build, this property should be visible, reviewable, and operationalizable.

A DP is not one implementation. The same property can be tested across:

• An overlay app
• Browser integration
• An SDK or library
• A community tool

DPs describe outcomes and conditions (the “what” humanity wants). They are not RFCs or product requirements. Multiple implementations can coexist while staying aligned on shared outcomes. See FAQ: Start here.

Desirable Properties guide requirements. Requirements shape architecture decisions. Architecture decisions shape the Overweb substrate. The substrate then supports overlay apps, smart tags, presence, filters, meta-communities, and governance.

1. DP

   What must be true?

   Community-defined criteria that any implementation should satisfy.

2. ML-REQ

   What must systems satisfy?

   Testable requirements derived from accepted properties.

3. ML-ADR

   What do we choose, and why?

   Documented architecture decisions with explicit rationale.

4. Overweb

   What shared layer makes it usable?

   Substrate for overlays, smart tags, presence, filters, and governance.

The Community Review Draft organizes 23 canonical DPs into six families. You do not need to read every property. Pick one that matches your lens.

Back to pick a property →

Public review is open. Workgroup synthesis now aims at Version 1.0, then candidate requirements, architecture decisions, and implementation evidence.

1. September 16, 2026 · past

   Community Review Draft milestone. What shipped

2. Now through November 13, 2026

   Book discussion, workgroup Astra and Edit work, Canopi conversation, and recruitment to at least 3 people per workgroup

3. November 13, 2026 · target

   Version 1.0 release target (Desirable Properties Version 1.0 release). Dates are targets, not guaranteed ship dates.

View the full challenge timeline →

Choose one DP. Bring one improvement.

Comment on a chapter, or join a workgroup and help take it to Version 1.0 by November 13, 2026.