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DCP-01 — Identity & Principal Binding

Humans precede agents. No agent exists without an explicit binding to a person or legal entity that assumes responsibility. DCP-01 defines the artifacts that bind agent identity to human identity.

Normative artifacts

Artifact Description Schema
Responsible Principal Record (RPR) Record declaring who the human/organization is, jurisdiction, liability mode, and validity. schemas/v1/responsible_principal_record.schema.json
Agent Passport (AP) Agent passport: identity, public key, reference to RPR, status (active/revoked/suspended). schemas/v1/agent_passport.schema.json
Revocation Record Record of revocation of an agent: who revokes, when, reason. schemas/v1/revocation_record.schema.json

$id for schemas: https://dcp-ai.org/schemas/v1/<name>.schema.json

Validation

Validate an object against its schema:

dcp validate schemas/v1/responsible_principal_record.schema.json <hbr.json>
dcp validate schemas/v1/agent_passport.schema.json <ap.json>
dcp validate schemas/v1/revocation_record.schema.json <revocation.json>

A Citizenship Bundle (which includes RPR and AP) is validated with:

dcp validate-bundle <citizenship_bundle.json>

Examples

The source of truth for fields and enums is the JSON Schema; this document is the normative specification that references them.

Jurisdiction Attestation (optional)

A Jurisdiction Attestation is an optional object that certifies an agent's Responsible Principal Record as valid within a specific jurisdiction. It is produced by a jurisdiction authority (government, regulatory body, or accredited issuer) and may be included in the Signed Bundle or presented alongside it.

Object format

{
  "type": "jurisdiction_attestation",
  "issuer": "authority-us-ai-registry",
  "jurisdiction": "US",
  "rpr_hash": "sha256:<hex>",
  "agent_id": "agent-uuid-here",
  "attested_at": "2026-02-07T00:00:00Z",
  "expires_at": "2027-02-07T00:00:00Z",
  "signature": {
    "alg": "ed25519",
    "public_key_b64": "...",
    "sig_b64": "..."
  }
}

Fields

Field Type Description
type string Always "jurisdiction_attestation".
issuer string Identifier of the issuing authority.
jurisdiction string ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code (e.g. "US", "EU", "JP").
rpr_hash string sha256:<hex> — SHA-256 of the canonical JSON of the Responsible Principal Record being attested.
agent_id string The agent_id from the Agent Passport.
attested_at string ISO 8601 date-time when the attestation was issued.
expires_at string or null ISO 8601 date-time when the attestation expires; null for no expiry.
signature object Ed25519 signature over the canonical JSON of all fields except signature itself. alg, public_key_b64, sig_b64.

How it works

  1. The agent creator (or the agent holder) computes rpr_hash = SHA-256(canonical(responsible_principal_record)).
  2. The creator submits rpr_hash + agent_id to the jurisdiction's attestation service (or in-person / offline process).
  3. The authority verifies the RPR (identity, jurisdiction, validity) and signs the attestation.
  4. The attestation is returned to the agent holder and stored alongside or inside the Signed Bundle.

Verification

A verifier checks the attestation by:

  1. Computing rpr_hash from the bundle's responsible_principal_record and comparing it to the attestation's rpr_hash.
  2. Verifying the Ed25519 signature with the issuer's public key (obtained from the jurisdiction's well-known URL or a trusted set of issuer keys).
  3. Checking that attested_at is in the past and expires_at is null or in the future.

See VERIFICATION.md step 10.

Issuer public keys

The protocol suggests (but does not mandate) that jurisdictions publish their attestation public keys at a well-known URL:

https://<authority>/.well-known/dcp-attestation-keys.json

Format:

{
  "issuer": "authority-us-ai-registry",
  "jurisdiction": "US",
  "keys": [
    { "key_id": "key-2026-01", "public_key_b64": "...", "valid_from": "2026-01-01T...", "valid_until": "2027-01-01T..." }
  ]
}

This is a convention; any method of distributing issuer keys is acceptable (peer, registry, well-known URL, etc.).

Jurisdictional revocation list

A jurisdiction may publish a signed revocation list — a JSON file listing agents that have been revoked within that jurisdiction. See docs/STORAGE_AND_ANCHORING.md for the format, publication convention, and how verifiers use it.

Reference