diff --git a/src/envelope.cpp b/src/envelope.cpp
index 244328e..c3b77c5 100644
--- a/src/envelope.cpp
+++ b/src/envelope.cpp
@@ -18,3 +18,57 @@
 
 #include "envelope.h"
 
+/*
+ * how do the ascii envelopes look like?
+ *
+ * similarly to PGP:
+ *
+ * ------ccr begin typeident termident------
+ * data
+ * ------ccr cut typeident termident------
+ * next part data
+ * ------ccr cut typeident termident------
+ * other next part data
+ * ------ccr end typeident termident------
+ *
+ * To distinguish ourselves from PGP, we use six dashes and prefixed CCR name.
+ * No version information is supplied - versioning should be contained
+ * preferably in typeident, e.g. like "message" "better_message" and
+ * "bettermessage-version3".
+ *
+ * Cleartext two-part messages and similar evil sorceries are generalized to
+ * multipart messages using the "part cut".
+ *
+ * Also, to prevent cleartext embedding conflicts, we add termident, which is
+ * basically a random string of letters and numbers that serves as a mark that
+ * must be the same on the begin and end.
+ */
+
+size_t envelope_get (const std::string&data, size_t offset,
+                     std::string&out_type,
+                     std::vector<std::string>&out_parts)
+{
+
+	size_t begin;
+
+restart:
+	//try to find begin mark.
+	begin = data.find ("------ccr begin ", offset);
+
+	//nothing possible found, die.
+	if (begin == data.npos) return 0;
+
+	//try to parse the begin mark
+	std::string type, mark;
+
+	//TODO parse it lol
+	//TODO move offset
+
+	//read all sections
+	for (;;) {
+
+	}
+
+	//return the modified offset
+	return offset;
+}
diff --git a/src/envelope.h b/src/envelope.h
index a8e1286..5882632 100644
--- a/src/envelope.h
+++ b/src/envelope.h
@@ -19,5 +19,23 @@
 #ifndef _ccr_envelope_h_
 #define _ccr_envelope_h_
 
+#include <string>
+#include <vector>
+
+/*
+ * Tools for finding envelopes in ascii/utf-8 text.
+ *
+ * We simply don't care about wide chars in text, UTF-16+, nor conflicting
+ * encodings, nor any similar abominations.
+ *
+ * envelope_get tries to find an envelope in text data, starting from offset,
+ * returning the offset of first possible following envelope or 0 if nothing
+ * usuable was found.
+ */
+
+size_t envelope_get (const std::string& data, size_t offset,
+                     std::string&out_type,
+                     std::vector<std::string>&out_parts);
+
 #endif