CODEX: A Collaborative Document Exchange System
Abstract
CODEX (Codex Organizes Documents, Edits, and eXchanges) is a peer-to-peer, decentralized system for collaborative document editing and versioning. Unlike traditional cloud-based editors, CODEX emphasizes ownership hierarchy, offline-first resilience, and privacy-preserving collaboration. The system employs modern distributed systems principles for conflict resolution, replication, and user governance, enabling collaborative editing with structured control over contributions.
1. Motivation
Existing collaborative document platforms (e.g., Google Docs, Overleaf, Office 365) provide real-time editing and sharing but suffer from several limitations:
Centralization – users must trust a single provider for data hosting, authentication, and long-term access.
Opaque ownership – it is often unclear who “owns” the canonical version of a document.
Weak offline support – most editors degrade sharply when connectivity is intermittent.
Traceability – version histories are tightly coupled to centralized logs, limiting transparency and portability.
CODEX addresses these limitations by providing a distributed, user-centric architecture where ownership, revisions, and trust are explicitly modeled.
2. System Overview
CODEX is built as a distributed document graph:
Documents are modeled as CRDTs (Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types), allowing concurrent edits without centralized arbitration.
Users are ranked as Owner, Collaborator, or Reader. Ownership defines canonical authority, while collaborators may propose or merge edits depending on permissions.
Collaboration Sessions may be synchronous (real-time editing) or asynchronous (distributed merge proposals).
Storage is decentralized: users may self-host, replicate on trusted peers, or integrate with IPFS-like backends for persistence.
3. Ownership and Collaboration Model
CODEX introduces a ranked collaboration hierarchy:
Owner – defines canonical state; may accept/reject merges.
Collaborators – ranked by trust/priority (e.g., senior editors > junior contributors). Their edits may be auto-merged or queued for approval.
Readers – view-only access; can annotate via marginalia/comments but not alter text.
This explicit ranking provides a balance between decentralized edit freedom and clear governance.
4. Versioning and Revision Control
CODEX integrates a layered revision history inspired by manuscript traditions:
Base Layer – the authoritative text maintained by the owner.
Overlay Layers – collaborator contributions, tracked as separate branches.
Palimpsest Mechanism – old text remains accessible through cryptographically signed revision chains, ensuring no deletion without trace.
This approach allows CODEX to function both as a real-time editor and as a long-term archival system.
5. Security and Privacy
End-to-end encryption of documents and communications.
Decentralized authentication using cryptographic identities (e.g., ed25519).
Selective disclosure: owners can allow partial visibility (e.g., share a single chapter without revealing the entire codex).
Unlinkability option: edits can be routed through randomized intermediaries, making it difficult to map contributor networks.
6. Implementation Roadmap
Prototype Phase – core CRDT engine, basic peer-to-peer sync, simple UI.
Ownership & Ranking Layer – enforce owner/collaborator/reader roles, merge policies.
Security & Privacy Layer – implement encrypted storage, decentralized identity, optional anonymization.
Integration Phase – export/import with Markdown, LaTeX, and PDF workflows.
Production Phase – scaling to large teams, integration with federated identity (SSO, organizational logins).
7. Potential Applications
Academic publishing & collaborative papers.
Legal contracts with hierarchical authorship.
Technical documentation (versioned, peer-maintained).
Decentralized knowledge bases or wikis.
Archival editing of historical manuscripts.
8. Conclusion
CODEX provides a document-first, user-centric, and decentralized alternative to existing collaboration platforms. Its design fuses historical metaphors of layered writing with modern distributed systems, enabling both real-time co-editing and long-term textual preservation.
By making ownership explicit, revisions durable, and collaboration trust-ranked, CODEX aspires to become a new standard for resilient, private, and transparent document collaboration.