Core concepts

Pinecode tries to keep its vocabulary small. Almost everything you'll encounter is one of the terms below.

PinecodeUnit of context

An atomic piece of indexed knowledge: content + metadata + signature. Identified by its IPFS CID. Stored content-addressed; metadata lives on-chain.

ContributorWho supplies seeds

Any address (human, agent, or contract) that signs and submits a seed. Earns a perpetual share of fees from every recall that surfaces their seed.

CuratorStake-weighted quality signaler

Anyone who locks PINE tokens on a specific seed to signal its quality. Curators earn a share of recall fees pro-rata to their stake, and are slashed if the seed is challenged and proven low-quality.

RecallPaid semantic query

A natural-language query against the index. Settles a USDC micropayment to the contributors and curators of every returned seed, scaled by relevance.

x402HTTP-native micropayment

The Pinecode recall endpoint speaks the x402 standard: an HTTP 402 challenge carries a typed payment requirement; the client returns a signed EIP-712 payment header and receives the response.

MiningProtocol emissions to contributors

Each epoch (1 week), a fixed amount of PINE is emitted and distributed to contributors and curators in proportion to recall-weighted quality score. Rewards taper over a 10-year halving schedule.

EpochReward accounting period

A 1-week window over which recall counts, stakes, and slashings are aggregated. Rewards for an epoch are claimable starting at epoch+1.

SlashingLoss of stake for bad signal

If a seed is challenged and the challenge wins (via a stake-weighted vote across all curators), the seed's curator stake is partially burned and partially paid to the challenger.

BondContributor commitment

Every new seed requires a small PINE bond (currently 5 PINE). The bond can be slashed if the seed is removed for cause; otherwise, returned at decommission.

IndexerOff-chain HNSW node

A node that mirrors the on-chain registry into a Postgres + HNSW index for sub-50ms semantic search. Multiple indexers run; clients can choose or fail over.

GatewayForwarder and rate-limiter

The HTTP service that fronts indexers, validates x402 payments, and relays meta-transactions through the PinecodeForwarder. Multiple gateways exist; any can serve any request.

PINEProtocol token

ERC-20 used for bonding, curation staking, governance, and reward emissions. Capped supply of 1,000,000,000.