Agent Accord

A draft specification anchor for the bilateral trust and policy layer above crawler identity and origin discovery. Web Bot Auth can prove who is at the door. Agent Accord records the terms under which the door opens.

Read the draft spec /.well-known/agent-accord.json terms schema receipt schema draft status

Three artifacts

  • agent-accord.json: published terms template
  • agent-accord-receipt: signed bilateral acceptance event
  • Accord transparency log: public audit anchor

Related standards

Scope boundary

This draft publishes templates and schemas only. It does not claim a live negotiation protocol, an operational receipt exchange, or a production transparency log.

Why this exists

The machine web is converging toward a two-sided contract. Crawlers are beginning to carry cryptographic identity and intent signals. Origins are beginning to publish structured capability, provenance, and access policy surfaces. The missing layer is the bilateral one: the place where both sides can point to what was accepted, for what purpose, for how long, and under what auditable conditions.

What this draft does not claim

Version v1-draft is doctrinal and technical guidance, not a legal contract framework under any named jurisdiction. It should be read as a machine-readable terms-of-engagement draft, open for feedback and STRESS review.