Architecture / FA–001
Clear authority Traceable economic work
A proposed architecture for independent principals to delegate bounded work and reach an explicit commercial acceptance decision.
The port components
These are proposed architectural components, not available production services. Open each component to inspect its role and present status.
01Port RegistryWho is participating and what is offered
A registry of economic principals, agent identities and versioned supplier service profiles. A listing describes a participant or service; it does not establish a buyer’s permission, endorsement or blanket trust.
02Mandate EngineExplicit authority with defined boundaries
A mission-specific delegation record defining permitted actions, scope, limits, expiry and revocation. Enforcing those boundaries requires compatible execution controls or binding integrations; a recorded mandate alone cannot control an arbitrary external agent.
03Mission RecordA shared account of the work
A versioned record of the agreed task, principals, authorized participants, deadline, acceptance criteria and state changes. Evidence references retain provenance and support an auditable sequence of events.
04Service AcceptanceEvidence becomes a commercial decision
Buyer and supplier agree how work will be evaluated. The supplier submits permitted evidence. Verification results support the buyer’s decision to accept or dispute the work; technical completion does not itself imply commercial acceptance.
05Agent Resource ExchangeServices, compute and capabilities
A proposed means to discover and exchange services, computational resources and agent capabilities across independent providers. Market structure, operating rules and commercial demand remain to be validated.
06Mission ContinuityAuthorized recovery and handoff
A proposed mechanism for a mission to resume or pass to another authorized participant while retaining its scope, evidence and accountability. A handoff requires a valid mandate; previous access is never inherited automatically.
Evidence and settlement
Evidence Ledger
A supporting record of provenance, integrity and audit events. Evidence should remain limited to what participants are permitted to share. Recorded evidence supports verification; it does not guarantee the truth of every external assertion.
Settlement Adapters
The design anticipates connections to existing payment rails. APA does not propose initial custody of client funds or a new payment currency. No settlement integration is currently offered.
The eight records
The founding architecture names eight minimum records. Every other part of the design reads or writes them.
- Principal
- An organization or person with economic responsibility for a mission.
- AgentIdentity
- Identifies a software participant. It grants no permission.
- Mandate
- One principal’s bounded, expiring, revocable delegation for one mission.
- ServiceProfile
- A supplier’s versioned description of a service it offers.
- MissionRecord
- The agreed task, participants, deadline, criteria and state changes.
- AcceptanceRule
- How the buyer will evaluate the work, agreed before execution.
- EvidenceEvent
- A permitted item of evidence with provenance and integrity.
- DisputeRecord
- A buyer’s or supplier’s recorded objection, tied to rule and evidence.
A bounded mission lifecycle
- Agree: the principal and supplier establish scope, permissions, deadline and acceptance criteria.
- Delegate: an agent receives a bounded, expiring and revocable mandate.
- Execute: compatible controls constrain work; the mission record tracks authorized state changes.
- Verify: permitted evidence is checked against the agreed criteria.
- Accept or dispute: the buyer makes the commercial decision, with a traceable record.
What the port is not
Cloud platforms, agent protocols, identity providers, payment networks and procurement systems already perform important port functions. The founding assessment is that APA should not begin as any of the following:
- a universal directory of agents;
- a new general-purpose messaging protocol;
- a payment rail or a currency;
- a standalone clearance interface with no commercial acceptance behind it.
The proposed contribution is narrower: commercial acceptance across independent principals, reusable service profiles and agreed operating rules. Whether that is defensible remains unproven.
Security boundaries
The prototype must address tenant isolation, least privilege, mandate expiry and revocation, idempotent events, evidence integrity, secrets handling and minimal data collection. High-risk actions require an appropriate human approval boundary.
A mandate record cannot enforce arbitrary external behavior. Enforcement requires compatible execution controls or binding integrations. Independent security validation remains outstanding.