Protocol Specification
The authoritative standards-track documentation for the Creduent Identity Protocol. Defines metadata schemas, signature pipelines, URI resolution workflows, and cross-registry trust topologies.
Overview
As artificial intelligence transitions from conversational assistants to agentic systems operating autonomously, verifying system identities becomes critical. The Creduent protocol provides a standard for cryptographic identity, attestation verification, and secure namespace discovery for AI agents.
Creduent establishes a machine-readable document format (agent.json), a decentralized resolver schema (agent:// URIs), and a structured cryptographic attestation flow. It enables independent systems to programmatically verify that an agent is controlled by its declared owner, acts with verified permissions, and maintains a validated domain binding.
Protocol Scope & Boundaries
Statement of Integration:Creduent does not replace transport security (mTLS), authorization (OAuth), or general-purpose identity frameworks (W3C DID, SPIFFE). It addresses a layer those standards weren't designed for — verifiable identity and attestation for autonomous AI agents acting independently.
By decoupling identity claims from network layers, Creduent allows verification checkpoints at any boundary—whether an agent is running in a local desktop runtime, inside a cloud sandbox, or interacting directly with third-party APIs.
Relationship to Adjacent Standards
> Mutual TLS (mTLS)
Secures transport layer communication between known endpoints; Creduent operates at the application layer to verify agent identity and metadata independently of the connection type.
> OAuth 2.0 & OIDC
Establishes delegated authority and access tokens for specific API scopes; Creduent provides base identity declarations and verification before session authorization takes place.
> W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)
Offers a general-purpose, ledger-agnostic framework for self-sovereign identity; Creduent provides a lightweight, DNS-native profile optimized specifically for AI agent discovery, capabilities, and fast attestation registry lookup.
> SPIFFE / SPIRE
Standardizes container-to-container service identities in cloud-native microservices; Creduent addresses public web-facing and multi-platform autonomous agents acting on behalf of users across administrative domain boundaries.