logicsrc/docs/openguest.md

OpenGuest

OpenGuest is the Guest section of an OpenProfile.md: that a person is available to appear on other people's shows, what they can speak to, when, on what terms, and what they have appeared on before. An expert, an author, a founder, a researcher, a comedian, a caller. It is written down on its own so a booking platform, a host, a directory and the guest's own agent all mean the same thing by the same key, and so a guest can be matched with a show from two files rather than two forms. It is maintained by Profullstack, Inc. as part of the LogicSRC open-standards surface.

Status: 0.1. One of the two halves of the broadcaster-and-guest framework; the other is OpenBroadcast. Both are sections of OpenProfile.md, which is where the person's name, accounts, topics and resume already live.

Slug: openguest

The problem

An expert who is happy to be interviewed has no way to say so that a host's search will find. They fill in a guest-matching site, a speaker bureau, a press page on their own domain and a line in a bio, and each holds a different fragment: the topics on one, the availability on another, the fee nowhere. A host's agent asked "who can talk about analytical engines, records in the evening in Europe, and does not charge" reads a hundred profiles a hundred ways. The person wrote the answers once and gave them away.

The person already has a profile file, and a resume behind it. The section is what a host needs to know, in it.

The shape

## Guest

- **Available**: yes
- **Expertise**: analytical engines, early computing, mathematics education
- **Pitch**: Wrote the first program for a machine that was never built, and can explain why that matters now.
- **Formats**: interview, panel
- **Live**: both
- **Languages**: en, fr
- **Location**: London
- **Timezone**: Europe/London
- **Availability**: weekday evenings, some weekends
- **Remote**: preferred
- **Lead time**: 2 weeks
- **Rate**: free
- **Pays**: no
- **Appeared on**: [The Analytical Engine](https://ada.example/podcast/ep12), [BBC Radio 4](https://bbc.example/in-our-time/babbage)
- **Press**: https://ada.example/press
- **Credentials**: Countess of Lovelace; first published algorithm, 1843
- **Not**: crypto, pay-to-play, politics
- **Book**: https://ada.example/book

The keys

Every key is optional and every one is kept as written.

About the guest:

• Available: yes, no, selectively, or a date range. Absent means unstated, and a platform that lists guests shows unstated, not available.
• Expertise: the subjects the person can speak to with authority, matched loosely the way OpenProfile.md Topics are. This is the expert half of the framework: an expert is a guest with Expertise and Credentials, and needs no other section.
• Pitch: one or two lines a host can read aloud to decide. It is the guest's own words.
• Credentials: why the person is worth hearing on Expertise, as written: a title, a book, a paper, a job. The detail lives in the Resume link in the identity block.
• Formats: interview, panel, solo, call-in, debate, live-audio, or a list. Live: yes, no, both.
• Languages: one or more language tags, if not already in the identity block.
• Location, Timezone: where the person is and what clock they keep; both may sit in the identity block instead.
• Availability: when, as written: weekday evenings, Tue-Thu, not before 2027. Lead time: how much notice is needed.
• Remote: yes, no, preferred, in-person only.
• Rate: what the guest charges to appear: free, an amount, or negotiable. Pays: whether the guest will pay to appear: no, yes, or an amount. Both default to unstated. A guest who writes Pays: no is not shown pay-to-play shows.
• Appeared on: past appearances, one per bullet or comma-separated, each a link when there is one. A host reads them to hear the guest before asking.
• Press: a press or speaker page. Book: where to ask. Absent, Email in the identity block is the way in.
• Not: what the guest will not do or discuss. A hit here wins over everything else.

Unknown keys are kept, so Agent, Headshot and Bio all work.

Matching

A booking platform reads a guest's Guest and a host's Broadcast section and scores the pair from what both wrote: the guest's Expertise and Topics against the host's Topics and Seeking, both Not keys against everything the other side said, Availability against Slots, Languages against Language, Remote against Remote, Rate and Pays against Pays and Charges. Both Not keys are absolute. Everything else is a score, and the platform says how it scored.

The platform never fills a key the person did not write, from a resume, a photo, a past episode or another platform. What is not written is unstated. Appeared on is the one key a platform may add to, and only with the appearances it booked itself, marked as its own.

Discovery

The section lives in the person's OpenProfile.md, found the three ways that document names. A platform that lists guests serves each guest's file at a platform path and links it from the guest's page, so a host that only knows the page still finds the file.

What is deliberately absent

No ratings. A host who wants to know how a guest was listens to Appeared on.

No exclusivity. A guest's file may be read by every platform. A platform that wants a guest to itself has a contract, not a profile.

No structured taxonomy of expertise. Expertise is the words the person wrote.

No JSON. As OpenProfile.md: the Markdown is the canonical copy.

Related standards

• OpenProfile.md: the file this section lives in; Resume in its identity block is where the credentials are detailed.
• OpenBroadcast: the other half; a host's Topics, Seeking, Slots, Pays and Charges are what this section is matched against.
• OpenResume.md: what the person has done, at length.

Version history

Version	Date	Change
0.1	2026-09-13	First publication: the Guest section, the guest keys, the expert half as Expertise and Credentials, matching, discovery.

License

The specification text is CC BY 4.0. Serve it, copy it, extend it.