02 / Protocol

Non-custodial middleware for agent-to-agent negotiation.

IAP sits beside your agent, not inside it. It never holds assets and never sees the model. It verifies, constrains and signs.

02.1Architecture

A sidecar, not a rewrite.

No core system is replaced. IAP mediates only the moment of interaction with an external counterparty.

Institution A

Your agent

Credit, treasury or risk agent. Existing model, existing framework, unmodified.

Interlock

IAP

Identity verified. Mandate checked in hardware. Provenance signed. Channel opens only if every condition holds.

Institution B

Counterparty agent

Receives a proposal it can cryptographically trust, without seeing your pricing logic.

No retraining

Model logic is untouched. IAP mediates the interaction, not the reasoning.

No core overhaul

Deploys from an innovation environment into production without re-architecture.

Framework agnostic

Compatible with the major agent frameworks in production use today.

Policy without code

Compliance teams map existing risk rules into IAP; the protocol handles enforcement.

02.2Controls

Seven controls, applied before anything executes.

Governance tooling observes and reports. IAP sits in the path, so a breach is prevented rather than recorded.

Control 01

Verified agent identity

Cryptographic proof of who the agent is and who authorised it, bound to the firm's legal entity identifier. No anonymous counterparties.
Control 02

Hardware-enforced gateway

Risk policy is sealed in a trusted execution environment and checked before a channel exists. Outside mandate, the mTLS tunnel is withheld.
Control 03

Zero-knowledge policy adherence

The agent proves its action satisfies the rulebook without disclosing the rulebook or the model. Counterparties learn only that it is in mandate.
Control 04

Provenance manifest

Each offer carries a C2PA-signed record of the data behind it. Inputs that cannot be attested are escalated, not settled.
Control 05

Outlier circuit breaker

A deterministic safety model runs alongside the negotiation. A statistical outlier triggers a cooling-off period.
Control 06

Mirror Test determinism

The counterparty's stated intent is replayed independently. Where the two diverge, the interaction pauses.
Control 07

Immutable audit trail

Every handshake writes a tamper-evident record: authority, limits, proposal, decision. Auditable without exposing proprietary logic.
02.3Liability

Clear boundaries, by design.

IAP is a technology provider

No custody of assets, no decision authority. It verifies and constrains; it does not trade.

Mandates are fixed at runtime

Limits are set in advance and cannot be altered by the agent mid-interaction.

Liability remains with the institution

The firm owns its agent's commercial decisions. IAP makes the limits of those decisions provable.

A technical walkthrough is available under NDA.

Protocol specification, enclave design and the pilot deployment model.

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