Standards
Agent identity on the web, call attestation on the phone, mandates for authorisation and challenges instead of walls all exist as open standards. Aethelforge reads them and counts — and runs a reference implementation you can call.
In one paragraph
Web Bot Auth for agent identity on the web, STIR/SHAKEN for what the phone network attests, the Model Context Protocol as the lane an agent can use, AP2-style mandates for authorisation, an HTTP 402 challenge instead of a block, and signed discovery — llms.txt, a JSON manifest and a published key set.
Six standards
An agent signs each request with an Ed25519 key and points at the directory where the key is published. We read the Signature-Agent header on the monitored sites and count a signing agent as declared.
Carrier attestation says whether the calling number is legitimately the caller’s. It says nothing about who, or what, is on the line. The receptionist reads the attestation level first and the transcript second.
A vendor-neutral way for an assistant to read resources and call tools. This site runs an MCP server: every page is a resource, and the Index is a tool call away.
A signed envelope that says what the principal authorised, under which constraints, until when. We use its shape for the authorisation a business can ask a declared agent for.
A resource answers an unidentified request with 402 and a description of what would satisfy it. The undeclared agent is asked to identify itself rather than blocked. Our reference endpoint signs the receipt it issues.
A plain-text index for language models, a signed JSON manifest describing the site’s machine surfaces, and a published key set so anything we sign can be checked by a third party.
Reference implementation
This site practises what it counts. Every machine surface below is live on aethelforge.ai and answers without an account.
POST /mcpMCP server, JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP. Every page as a resource; get_index, get_recent_events and verify_receipt as tools.GET /api/index/latestThe current Index edition as Ed25519-signed JSON.GET /.well-known/aethelforge/keysPublic JWK set. Every signature this site issues verifies against a key here.GET /.well-known/agent-commerce.jsonSigned discovery manifest describing the machine surfaces on this site.GET /api/receipts/sampleThe 402 challenge. No identity → 402 with a description of what would satisfy it; with one → 200 and a signed receipt.POST /api/intents/sign · /verifySign and verify a mandate envelope — scope, constraints, expiry — under the site’s key.GET /api/ops/recentThe last events on the site’s own ops bus: page views, MCP calls, index fetches, challenges.GET /llms.txtPlain-text index for language models.FAQ
Because the web already settled it. Web Bot Auth — HTTP message signatures with an Ed25519 key and a published directory — is verified in production by the largest CDNs, and the major assistants sign with it. A business needs to read that signal, not mint a competing one.
No. A block returns nothing. A 402 returns a description of what would satisfy the request — an identity, a mandate, a token — and lets the agent come back with it. The customer behind the agent still gets served; the business learns who asked.
Index editions, the discovery manifest, receipts issued by the challenge endpoint and mandate envelopes, all with an Ed25519 key whose public half is published at /.well-known/aethelforge/keys under a key id. Rotation keeps old keys in the set so old signatures still verify.
Yes. They are public, rate-limited only by reasonableness, and documented on this page. The MCP server answers initialize, resources/list, resources/read, tools/list and tools/call.
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