Presence event
Required when a lease is issued or renewed.
Technical overview / Revision A
No human in the request loop. A human at the authorization boundary.
One presence event authorizes a bounded operating window. The agent then runs autonomously while every request remains attributable to a registered, rate-limited hardware root.
FIGURE 01Credential and request path
Agent process
Holds the temporary private key and signs requests.
02 / HARDWARE ROOTAgent Passport Rev A
NON-EXPORTABLE KEYECDSA P-256
Broker
Checks the request, lease, counter state, and root record.
Registry
Returns the issuer-signed device root.
Service
Applies policy against the root identifier.
Figure 02 / Control plane and request plane
Human authorization is periodic. Agent operation is continuous.
The device participates when it issues a lease. Requests during the lease are signed by the temporary process key.
HUMAN CONTROL PLANEAUTONOMOUS REQUEST PLANE
TouchDay 0
Thousands of signed requestsNo additional touch
RenewDay 7-31
THE DEVICE SIGNS
{ process_public_key, expires_at, counter }Figure 03 / Enforcement boundary
Copyable credentials versus a registered root
KEY
ID AID BID CID N
Each copy can appear unrelated and receive a fresh per-identity limit.
ROOT
01:23:A7
01:23:A7
LEASE ALEASE BLEASE C
Parallel processes may exist, but the verifier charges all of them to the same registered root.
01Root key remained in hardwareunder normal operation
02Lease came from that rootand has not expired
03Request came from that leaseand is payload-bound
04Policy maps to the rootnot a copyable API token
What this establishes
- A stable, registered hardware root sits behind the request.
- All recognized leases can share one externally enforced budget.
- Old root operations can be rejected with a monotonic counter.
What this does not establish
- That one unique human owns or operates the device.
- That the agent is safe, truthful, or uncompromised.
- That a valid leased process cannot misbehave before expiry.