BEHAVE/core

behave-core

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The shared observation envelope for BEHAVE. Defines the wire format that behave-shell and behave-text serialize all behavioral observations into. Every sensor in the BEHAVE ecosystem emits the same Observation structure — the domain-specific meaning lives in primitive and value; the envelope provides identity, provenance, time window, and schema versioning.

What it provides

Symbol	Type	Description
OBSERVATION_SCHEMA_VERSION	int	Envelope schema version (currently 1). Bumped when field shapes change; federation gossip receivers reject mismatched versions.
Observation	Pydantic model	One behavioral observation: a single primitive measured over a time window. The core class is registry-agnostic — it does not validate primitive or value against any specific domain. Use the registry-aware subclasses in behave-shell or behave-text for full validation.
ObservationValue	Union[str, int, float, bool, list[str], list[int], list[float], dict]	Type alias covering all valid value shapes.
Window	Pydantic model	The measurement window: start_ts and end_ts in epoch seconds. Distinct from Observation.ts (the emission time) — a sensor may compute an observation over a past window and emit it later.

Observation fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
primitive	str	✓	Fully-qualified primitive path, e.g. motor.keystroke_cadence
value	ObservationValue	✓	The measured value; shape validated by the domain registry
confidence	float [0,1]	✓	Sensor's confidence in this measurement (not in any attribution verdict)
window	Window	✓	Measurement time window
source	str	✓	Canonical sensor identifier, e.g. behave/sniffer/timing.py
evidence_ref	str | None	—	Pointer to underlying raw evidence (session tape, pcap). Never the evidence itself — see PII note below.
identity_ref	str | None	—	AttackerIdentity UUID if the observation is pre-attributed
ts	float	auto	Emission timestamp, epoch seconds
id	str	auto	UUID hex for deduplication
v	int	auto	Envelope schema version (= OBSERVATION_SCHEMA_VERSION)

PII discipline (non-negotiable)

BEHAVE observations carry categorical labels, timing aggregates, and hashes only. They must never carry:

• Raw keystroke content or command arguments
• Passwords, tokens, session keys, or any authentication material
• File contents or payload bytes
• Raw message text (especially in behave-text)

evidence_ref is a pointer to underlying evidence held elsewhere. Never the evidence itself.

Install

pip install -e .
# or, as a dependency of behave-shell / behave-text:
pip install -e ../core/

Quickstart

from behave_core.spec import Observation, Window, OBSERVATION_SCHEMA_VERSION

obs = Observation(
    primitive="motor.keystroke_cadence",
    value="bursty",
    confidence=0.82,
    window=Window(start_ts=1714000000.0, end_ts=1714003600.0),
    source="behave/shell-sensor/timing.py",
)
print(obs.model_dump_json())

Tests

pytest tests/

License

Code: GPL-3.0-or-later