Attested Actions · The envelope layer for agent actions

Making the Whole Action Verifiable

An agent acts through many records — a receipt that it happened, a permit that it was allowed. Attested Actions is the envelope that binds them into one signed, chained record you can verify end to end.

An action is attested when you can verify, from a single signed object, that it happened and that it was authorized — not by stitching together evidence scattered across systems. The Attested Action Envelope composes an action's records into one per-agent, hash-chained document, signed with Ed25519 over a JCS-canonical body, so the whole action verifies offline. It is a layer above the records that capture each part, not a replacement for any of them.

The two claims

The envelope makes two claims about an agent action, each bound to an existing evidence record. Together they are what it means for an action to be attested.

(a) It happened

The action occurred

Bound to receipts — the signed records an agent emits when it acts. Agency receipts are sm-arp.

(b) It was authorized

The action was permitted

Bound to permits and grants — the artifacts that record that the action was allowed. The pre-action authorization verdict is sm-aae; the principal-signed grant behind it is sm-dat. Refusals are first-class signed artifacts, not silent absences.

Out of scope. The envelope does not judge whether an action was correct or wise — only that it happened and was authorized. Corroborating the subject an action was performed against (was the counterparty who they claimed to be?) is a companion concern, handled by multi-source corroboration — the quilt — and kept deliberately separate. See the research & drafts →