Wire Protocol

Worthless Wire Protocol

[!NOTE] Pre-release. This protocol may change before v1.0.

Headers

Shard A is delivered to the proxy using standard provider authentication headers:

Provider	Header	Purpose
OpenAI	Authorization: Bearer <shard-A>	Shard A for key reconstruction
Anthropic	x-api-key: <shard-A>	Shard A for key reconstruction

The alias is embedded in the URL path: /<alias>/v1/chat/completions. The proxy extracts the alias from the first path segment and uses it to look up the corresponding shard-B. No custom Worthless-specific headers are required.

Endpoints

Path	Method	Provider	Status
/<alias>/v1/chat/completions	POST	OpenAI	Streaming + non-streaming
/<alias>/v1/messages	POST	Anthropic	Streaming + non-streaming
/healthz	GET	–	Liveness probe
/readyz	GET	–	DB connectivity check

All other paths return 401 (anti-enumeration: unknown endpoints do not return 404).

Proxy Error Responses

The proxy returns provider-compatible JSON error bodies so SDKs handle them natively.

Status	Meaning	When
401	Authentication required	Missing/invalid alias, missing shard-A in auth header, commitment mismatch
402	Spend cap exceeded	Cumulative spend exceeds configured cap
429	Rate limit exceeded	Requests per second exceeded (includes Retry-After header)
502	Gateway error	Upstream provider unreachable
504	Gateway timeout	Upstream provider timed out

All 401 responses return an identical body regardless of failure reason (anti-enumeration).

CLI Error Codes

Code	Name	Meaning
WRTLS-100	BOOTSTRAP_FAILED	Home directory or database initialization failed
WRTLS-101	ENV_NOT_FOUND	.env file not found or is a symlink
WRTLS-102	KEY_NOT_FOUND	No API key found, or shard missing
WRTLS-103	SHARD_STORAGE_FAILED	Failed to write shard to DB or filesystem
WRTLS-104	PROXY_UNREACHABLE	Proxy failed to start or health check timed out
WRTLS-105	LOCK_IN_PROGRESS	Another lock/unlock operation is running
WRTLS-106	SCAN_ERROR	File scan failed or invalid scan configuration
WRTLS-107	PORT_IN_USE	Proxy port already bound by another process
WRTLS-108	WRAP_CHILD_FAILED	Child process failed to start
WRTLS-199	UNKNOWN	Unexpected error

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
WORTHLESS_PORT	8787	Proxy listen port
WORTHLESS_DB_PATH	~/.worthless/worthless.db	SQLite database path
WORTHLESS_FERNET_KEY	(auto-generated)	Fernet key for encrypting Shard B at rest
WORTHLESS_RATE_LIMIT_RPS	100.0	Default rate limit (requests/second per IP)
WORTHLESS_UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT	120.0	Non-streaming upstream timeout (seconds)
WORTHLESS_STREAMING_TIMEOUT	300.0	Streaming upstream timeout (seconds)
WORTHLESS_ALLOW_INSECURE	false	Allow shard-A auth over non-TLS (dev only)

Security Model

Shard custody

• Shard A stays on the client machine in .env. It is format-preserving (same prefix, charset, and length as the original key), so the SDK sends it as Authorization: Bearer <shard-A> (OpenAI) or x-api-key: <shard-A> (Anthropic) on every request. The proxy extracts it from the standard auth header. No server-side shard-A storage exists.
• Shard B is encrypted at rest in SQLite using Fernet (AES-128-CBC + HMAC-SHA256). It is decrypted only in memory during key reconstruction.

Gate before reconstruct

The rules engine (rate limiting, spend caps) evaluates every request before Shard B is decrypted. If a rule denies the request, zero key material is touched. This is enforced architecturally – the reconstruction function is only called after all gates pass.

Server-side direct call

The reconstructed API key is used for the upstream provider call and immediately zeroed. It never appears in any response body, header, or log. The key exists in memory only for the duration of a single HTTP call.

Anti-enumeration

All authentication failures return an identical 401 response body. An attacker cannot distinguish between “alias does not exist” and “shard mismatch” from the response alone. Unknown endpoints also return 401 (not 404) to prevent endpoint discovery.