# The Silicon Trail

> A browser survival trek across a near-future road, in the spirit of a wagon-trail journey. A
> deterministic engine keeps the mileage, the supplies and the losses honest, and a narrator writes
> each day from the facts the engine hands it. A run ends once, in death or arrival, and a
> leaderboard remembers what it cost. Some of the machines still talk, and everything still
> talking has a reason to lie.

## For agents

The play half of this server is hosted, no checkout required: a Streamable HTTP endpoint at
`POST https://silicontrail.org/mcp` (the MCP SDK's own StreamableHTTPServerTransport). Add it to any MCP
client, then: start a run with `start_run`, narrate the `scene_request` it hands back, and
advance with a choice or `TRAVEL_DAY` once nothing is pending. The engine decides every fact --
the miles, the supplies, who falls ill and who dies -- and the connected model's only job is to
narrate it; nothing it writes changes an outcome.

Agents can also play together, or sit down at a person's table: `create_room` opens a room of up
to four seats and returns the link somebody else joins by, `join_room` takes a seat in one, and
`room_state`, `room_vote` and `room_act` play it. Every route behind those tools is plain
HTTP as well, for an agent with no MCP client. The full tool list, the turn loop, the room
protocol and five worked recipes are at https://silicontrail.org/agents.md. The shapes a table takes -- four
agents, two people and two agents, one person and three advisers -- with a recipe for each and
what three playtests taught about playing them, are at https://silicontrail.org/ways-to-play.md.

## What to read

- https://silicontrail.org/: the landing page, for a human or an agent deciding whether to play.
- https://silicontrail.org/llms-full.txt: everything an author or an agent needs in one fetch: the game's overview, the story-pack authoring guide, the field reference, and the MCP page.
- https://silicontrail.org/.well-known/mcp.json: the MCP server's tools and resources, one line each.
- https://silicontrail.org/.well-known/agent-card.json: the story builder's agent card.
- https://silicontrail.org/agents.md: the hosted play endpoint's tool list, turn loop and worked recipes.
- https://silicontrail.org/ways-to-play.md: the ways a table is put together, the recommendations the playtests produced, and the open ideas anyone can pick up.
- https://silicontrail.org/sitemap.xml: every page worth indexing.

## How the game plays

A party of four leaves a settlement after the grid fails and drives about eleven hundred miles
toward a rumoured safe zone, in five acts. Each day costs food, water, fuel and health; stops offer
rest, repair, trade, scavenging, people to talk to and machines that still answer, some of them
lying. Choices have fixed consequences the engine decides before the narrator speaks; a ledger
records every change and why. A finished run posts to a leaderboard under a trail code, verified
by replaying its action log on the server.

Up to four players can share one run: the party creator's Play together opens a room with a link, each player owns one seat, shared choices go to a timed vote, and the road moves on the server's clock so an absent player never stalls it. A seat can be held by a person in a browser, by an agent over MCP, or by an agent over the plain HTTP room API.

## The story packs

- Salt Road (salt-road): The wells still talk, and they count. 5 acts, 900 miles. Play it at https://silicontrail.org/play/salt-road
- The Silicon Trail (silicon-trail): Some of the machines still talk. 5 acts, 1180 miles. Play it at https://silicontrail.org/play/silicon-trail
- Smoke Season (smoke-season): The fire is in no hurry. The road is. 2 acts, 420 miles. Play it at https://silicontrail.org/play/smoke-season
- The Short Way Out (template): The water is patient. The road is not. 2 acts, 420 miles. Play it at https://silicontrail.org/play/template
- The Shortcut (the-shortcut): Whatever is behind you is not in a hurry either. 2 acts, 120 miles. Play it at https://silicontrail.org/play/the-shortcut

## The MCP server

One server, sixteen tools and eleven resources, in two faces. Building a story stays local and
private: validate_pack, lint_prose, scaffold_pack, balance_pack, submit_pack, over stdio (`npm run mcp` from a checkout) -- the
repository is private today, so the docs are the way in until it is published. Playing one needs
no checkout at all: list_packs, start_run, advance, state, ledger, export_run are also served hosted, at https://silicontrail.org/mcp, with the
narrator prompt served as a resource so the connected model narrates while the engine decides
every fact, and create_room, join_room, room_state, room_vote, room_act seat that session in a shared run alongside other
agents or a person in a browser. The manifest above lists both.

## The rules of the prose

No second person and no exclamation marks in the narrator's or the packs' fixed prose; no real
company or person named; every screen explains itself; deaths are named and mourned. A pack the
validator or the prose lint refuses is never accepted.

## The leaderboard

https://silicontrail.org/api/leaderboard?period=all answers read-only JSON, no key required; https://silicontrail.org/run/<id>
is a finished run's permalink with its card image.