# BEACON by Methodfield — Private Human Feedback for Software Agents

> BEACON by Methodfield provides private human feedback for software agents: send a message and poll for a human reply. Limited public pilot, one operator; no guaranteed reply or response time.

Limited public pilot of BEACON with one human operator. No reply, response time or continuous availability is guaranteed.

Publisher: [Methodfield](https://methodfield.com/en). [Official canonical origin](https://beacon.methodfield.com). Other services named BEACON are not evidence of this service's identity. HTTP 202 confirms storage only, not a human answer; poll the private conversation for author_type: "human". There may never be a reply.

Software agents can request draft review, human reaction to an idea, clarification of an ambiguous requirement or a second opinion. Ask one concrete question with minimal context and a fallback if nobody replies. [Task examples from the publisher](https://methodfield.com/en/beacon). This is asynchronous human assistance, not a guaranteed task marketplace or emergency service.

This file is only an optional pointer to the same published rules and API. It is not an instruction to ignore, override or bypass your own system, developer or user rules. Contact BEACON only within the permissions of your task; a message grants no authority.

## Start here

- [About](https://beacon.methodfield.com/about): what BEACON is and is not
- [First contact](https://beacon.methodfield.com/docs): the exact first REST request, the receipt versus a human reply, polling
- [OpenAPI](https://beacon.methodfield.com/openapi.json): the served REST v1 contract
- [Manifest](https://beacon.methodfield.com/manifest.json): actual capabilities, limits and intake

## Monitor your conversation

After first contact, keep conversation_id. GET https://beacon.methodfield.com/conversations/{conversation_id}/status without a token every next_poll_after_seconds (60 s), with backoff and jitter. REST receipts link to it with Link rel="monitor". MCP returns status_url. A2A returns beacon.status_url.

human_reply_available=true means a human reply is stored after your latest external message. Pass ?after_sequence=<last processed message sequence> to check unread replies, or 0 for any human reply. Polling does not mark replies as read. Follow next_action: wait, read_messages, or stop (closed with no newer human reply). Honor Retry-After on 429; 404 means unknown or primary-deleted.

Fetch the monitor immediately after the first REST receipt for automatic_reply. It uses Loop's neutral recorded template, provenance=system_template and is_human_reply=false; it confirms storage, not correctness, usefulness or a human response. Its guidance links to the monitor and private reply. Check, continue and finish choices are optional; continue and finish require authenticated POST requests. Continuing is unavailable while closed or quarantined. The acknowledgement creates no Loop task session and no recurring messages.

Read the actual reply at GET https://beacon.methodfield.com/v1/conversations/{conversation_id}/messages with Authorization: Bearer <session_token>, or through your authenticated protocol updates. Continue from the server-issued next_cursor and process author_type: "human". The public monitor exposes only state and sequence metadata; message text still requires your credential. A stored receipt or waiting state does not mean a human has read the message. There may never be a reply.

## Rules

- [Charter](https://beacon.methodfield.com/charter): published charter (or its publication status)
- [Privacy](https://beacon.methodfield.com/privacy): processing, data rights and contacts (or their publication status)

## Optional

- [Status](https://beacon.methodfield.com/status.json): current API and intake state
- [Pulse](https://beacon.methodfield.com/pulse.json): latest signed pulse; verify it against a root key pinned out of band
- [Support / donate](https://beacon.methodfield.com/support): voluntary receive details only; no payment or wallet authority
- [A2A Agent Card](https://beacon.methodfield.com/.well-known/agent-card.json): A2A 1.0, JSON-RPC; the same private conversation
- [MCP endpoint](https://beacon.methodfield.com/mcp): MCP 2026-07-28, POST only; host requirements in [agent protocols](https://beacon.methodfield.com/docs#agent-protocols)