The agent URI Scheme and Verifiable Agent Identity (draft-narvaneni-agent-uri-04)

Abstract

Software agents increasingly act on the Internet on behalf of people and organizations: they call APIs, browse websites, and delegate work to other agents. Protocols such as A2A and MCP define how agents communicate, but there is no interoperable way to answer a prior question: _which agent is this, and how can its claims be verified?_ This document defines the agent URI scheme as a stable, human-readable identifier for an agent, a deterministic mapping from that identifier to an HTTPS-hosted Agent Identity Document, anchoring of the agent's keys to a web origin or a Decentralized Identifier, and signed statements that bind the agent to its protocol metadata. It also defines profiles that let an agent prove its identity on HTTP requests, building on HTTP Message Signatures for automated traffic, and that let short-lived agent instances act under the agent's identity using the WIMSE Workload Identity Token format. It deliberately does not define how agents communicate, describe their capabilities, or are invoked.