There's a parallel that keeps coming up in conversations about HumanDispatch.
POST /message is how things get communicated digitally. Email, Slack, SMS, push notifications — they're all variations on the same primitive. An entity composes a message, sends it to an endpoint, and it gets delivered. The protocol handles routing, delivery confirmation, retry logic, formatting.
Before that primitive existed, digital communication was fragmented. Custom integrations, proprietary formats, point-to-point connections. The standardization of messaging into callable endpoints is what made modern communication infrastructure possible.
The Physical World Doesn't Have an Endpoint
Right now, getting something done in the physical world has no equivalent primitive.
If an AI agent needs a product photo taken, there's no endpoint to call. There's no schema to fill. There's no protocol that handles matching, escrow, execution, verification, and settlement.
Instead, there's a manual handoff. The agent's work stops at the boundary between digital and physical, and a human picks it up with a sticky note.
Every time.
POST /task
POST /task is that missing endpoint.
POST /v1/tasks
{
"task_type": "PRODUCT_PHOTO_ECOMM",
"title": "Spring collection — 10 SKU PDP shots",
"location": { "mode": "onsite", "address": "Toronto, ON" },
"budget": { "max_total": 3000 },
"task_spec": {
"product_count": 10,
"background": "white",
"angles": ["front", "45deg", "detail"]
}
}
The agent describes the outcome. The platform handles everything between the request and the verified result.
Matching. Escrow. Execution. QA. Settlement.
The agent gets back a webhook with verified deliverables. The photographer gets paid. Neither had to send a message.
Why This Framing Matters
Framing matters because it determines how people think about the category.
If HumanDispatch is "a marketplace for hiring freelancers via API," it's a feature. A nice-to-have. Something that makes Fiverr marginally more accessible to developers.
If HumanDispatch is "the endpoint for physical execution" — the POST /task primitive — it's infrastructure. It's the thing that makes a new category of automation possible.
POST /message didn't just make email better. It made Slack, push notifications, chatbots, and automated alerts possible. The primitive created the category.
POST /task doesn't just make freelance hiring better. It makes autonomous physical execution possible. The primitive creates the category.
The End State
The end state is simple.
Any autonomous system that needs something done in the physical world calls POST /task. The protocol handles the rest. Humans execute. Verification confirms. Payment settles.
The same way you don't think about SMTP when you send a message — you just send it — agents won't think about the execution layer when they need physical work done. They'll just dispatch it.
That's what infrastructure looks like when it's done right. It disappears into the workflow.
We're building toward that disappearance.