Book Context Protocol
Licensed, citable retrieval for books, papers, and deep reference material — built for AI. Bring your owned or institution-licensed sources into your AI workflows with clean citations, clear usage rules, and an upgrade path to paying rights holders.
The problem
AI workflows break down where the best information lives. Books and paid PDFs are hard to search well. Citations are messy across editions and formats. Rights are unclear. Teams rebuild the same pipelines in a dozen incompatible ways.
What is BCP
A content and retrieval standard for long-form sources. BCP defines how books, papers, and manuals are described, accessed, cited, and metered — so any tool can retrieve the right passages without treating content like a free-for-all.
Manifests
What the work is, which edition, how it's structured. Stable work and edition identifiers.
Locators
Stable references to passages — not fragile page numbers. Section, paragraph, and text hash.
Policies
What's allowed: quote length, display rules, caching limits. Rights travel with the content.
Receipts
Optional usage metering so creators and publishers can get paid. Micropayments, subscriptions, or one-time access.
Interface
Four standard tools — delivered over MCP or any transport.
search
query, filters → passage handles
fetch
handle, max_chars → text + citation + receipt
cite
handle, style → formatted citation
policy
work_id → allowed uses + pricing
Examples
search("how repetition creates false beliefs", { author: "Kahneman" })
“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”
verbatim allowed / max 500 chars
384 chars / $0.0029
Who this is for
Builders
Plug books and papers into agents and RAG with clean, stable citations. Less glue code, fewer one-off pipelines, better results.
Research & quant teams
Build internal knowledge systems over finance, science, and engineering references — with provenance and audit trails.
Publishers & authors
New revenue channel into AI retrieval. Policy controls, usage receipts, and a real path to getting paid for your work.
Institutions
Bring-your-own-access with existing subscriptions. Compliance, audit logs, and org-level controls.
Roadmap
- Work manifest schema
- Passage locators + citation format
- Basic policy schema
- Reference provider + client
- Usage receipts + payout reporting
- Versioning and change tracking
- No-verbatim / pointer-only mode
- Hosted marketplace + discovery
- Publisher onboarding + payouts
- Institutional access integration
BCP is forming now
BCP is building the spec in the open. Drop your email for spec updates and early access as things take shape.