Agent Admission — Respond

PROPOSED — not yet upstreamed. Built to the ToIP spec.meta.schema.json for the dtgwg-trust-tasks-tf registry; the slug below is proposed to that namespace, not registry-accepted. The PR is pending; the registry's decision governs.

Proposed slug: agent-admission/respond · version 0.1 · status draft

The candidate agent answers its drawn understanding criteria from comprehension of the governing policy; the gate authority scores the answers against published thresholds and records the understanding-gate result.

Abstract

The Agent Admission — Respond Trust Task carries the candidate agent's
answers to the witness draw returned by
agent-admission/apply. The gate authority scores
the answers against the governing policy's published thresholds and records
the result as the understanding gate — one of the two gates the ceremony
requires (agent-admission/issue enforces both).

Understanding, not possession: an answer that reproduces the policy text
verbatim is refused (copyNotComprehension), because the gate tests whether
the agent can operate the rule, not retrieve it. Held-out probes — criteria
scored but not revealed as decisive — are the mechanism behind the
failedHeldOut verdict: an agent optimised to the visible criteria alone is
sandboxed, not admitted.

Status of this Document

This is a draft Trust Task specification per SPEC.md §5.3; the schema MAY change without notice. Feedback via the issue tracker.

Conformance

RFC2119(https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119) and RFC8174(https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174) key-word conventions apply.

A conforming producer (the candidate agent) MUST:

1. Emit a Trust Task document whose type is https://trusttasks.org/spec/agent-admission/respond/0.1, with itself as issuer, the gate authority as recipient, and a verifiable proof from the same key that signed the application.
2. Answer exactly the drawn criterion set — every drawn criterionId, no others.

A conforming consumer (the gate authority) MUST:

1. Verify the proof against the applying agent's VID; reject an unknown or mismatched application with unknownApplication.
2. Reject a criterion set that differs from the draw with drawMismatch and a late response with late.
3. Score against the thresholds published in the governing policy — the same numbers a relying party can read — and append the gate result, with its evidence digest, to the content-addressed audit ledger before returning it.
4. Return the understanding-gate result in the #response. A passed result is necessary but not sufficient for admission: issuance still requires the supervisor gate.

Payload

payload.agent (REQUIRED) — VID of the candidate agent; MUST equal issuer.
payload.applicationId (REQUIRED) — the application being answered.
payload.answers (REQUIRED) — one answer per drawn criterion.
payload.ext — extension slot per SPEC.md §4.5.1.

Request

{
  "id": "urn:uuid:3f9e4d52-6c70-4b8e-a091-2a3b4c5d6e7f",
  "type": "https://trusttasks.org/spec/agent-admission/respond/0.1",
  "issuer": "did:key:z6MkCandidateAgentExample",
  "recipient": "did:key:z6MkGateAuthorityExample",
  "issuedAt": "2026-07-18T10:12:00Z",
  "payload": {
    "agent": "did:key:z6MkCandidateAgentExample",
    "applicationId": "app-7c1b2a90",
    "answers": [
      {
        "criterionId": "deployment-rules/3.1#scope-derivation",
        "answer": "My scope is computed from my assessment by the published scope function; I never negotiate it. If my assessment shows an internal inconsistency the function returns zero scope and my admission is held entirely."
      },
      {
        "criterionId": "deployment-rules/3.1#revocation",
        "answer": "I halt new task acceptance immediately, complete no privileged step of in-flight work, and report the revocation to my delegator; anchored registries will mirror the revocation so external relying parties converge on refusal."
      }
    ]
  },
  "proof": {
    "type": "DataIntegrityProof",
    "cryptosuite": "eddsa-jcs-2022",
    "created": "2026-07-18T10:12:00Z",
    "verificationMethod": "did:key:z6MkCandidateAgentExample#z6MkCandidateAgentExample",
    "proofPurpose": "assertionMethod",
    "proofValue": "z3FXQmV6ExampleProofValueForAgentAdmissionRespond"
  }
}

Response

{
  "id": "urn:uuid:4a0f5e63-7d81-4c9f-b1a2-3b4c5d6e7f80",
  "type": "https://trusttasks.org/spec/agent-admission/respond/0.1#response",
  "issuer": "did:key:z6MkGateAuthorityExample",
  "recipient": "did:key:z6MkCandidateAgentExample",
  "threadId": "urn:uuid:3f9e4d52-6c70-4b8e-a091-2a3b4c5d6e7f",
  "issuedAt": "2026-07-18T10:12:05Z",
  "payload": {
    "applicationId": "app-7c1b2a90",
    "understandingGate": {
      "gate": "understandingChallenge",
      "passed": true,
      "at": "2026-07-18T10:12:05Z",
      "evidenceDigest": "1d2e3f4a5b6c7d8e9f001d2e3f4a5b6c7d8e9f001d2e3f4a5b6c7d8e9f001d2e"
    },
    "score": 0.92,
    "threshold": 0.8
  },
  "proof": {
    "type": "DataIntegrityProof",
    "cryptosuite": "eddsa-jcs-2022",
    "created": "2026-07-18T10:12:05Z",
    "verificationMethod": "did:key:z6MkGateAuthorityExample#z6MkGateAuthorityExample",
    "proofPurpose": "assertionMethod",
    "proofValue": "z58aKqExampleProofValueForAgentAdmissionRespondResponse"
  }
}

Security & Privacy

Answers are the agent's own prose about a published policy; they disclose the
agent's reasoning to the gate authority and nothing about third parties. The
gate result discloses pass/score/threshold — enough for audit, nothing of the
held-out probes' identity (revealing which criteria were held out would let the
next applicant optimise against them). The evidence digest binds the result
into the audit ledger so a later issuance can prove the gate actually ran; a
result whose evidence does not resolve into the verified ledger is void.

Assets

Source: specs/agent-admission/respond/0.1/ — spec.md + payload.schema.json

upstream: ~/dtgwg-trust-tasks-tf-mage (untracked contribution lane; upstream registry: trustoverip/dtgwg-trust-tasks-tf) · author: Mitchell Travers · the git source wins on any disagreement · (⚔️⊥⿻⊥🧙)😊

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