Working papers
Inter-Agent Commerce and the Missing Adjudicative Layer
Inter-agent commerce has outpaced the infrastructure required to resolve the disputes it produces. The article isolates the two-agent condition, where both contracting parties act through AI agents with no human review at the moment of consent, and shows why the emerging agentic-commerce protocols (among them MCP, A2A, AP2, x402, Visa TAP, and Mastercard Verifiable Intent) resolve attribution but not adjudication. Reviewing online dispute resolution, the AI-arbitration literature, decentralised dispute resolution, multi-agent systems, and commercial arbitration, it finds that each reaches only part of the problem. It then identifies three mismatches the inherited dispute-resolution infrastructure produces when applied to inter-agent disputes, evidentiary, doctrinal, and institutional, and indicates for each what its resolution would require, including an evidentiary record organised into four strata: transaction, configuration, distributional, and capability.
Evidentiary Architecture for Inter-Agent Commercial Disputes
A companion article specifying the evidence model that an adjudicative layer for AI-agent commerce requires. The article develops a six-strata Evidence Package (transaction, configuration, behavior, mandate, instruction, environment), of which four are production strata captured at dispatch and two are forward-committed under Annex E. It traces seven attribution pathways through which liability may be assigned, and proposes a chain-of-custody architecture sealed at the moment of agent action. Pre-launch versions of the article are revised in lockstep with the Rules; the current rulebook (v0.1) is the controlling reference.
The Verdra Rules
The Verdra Rules are the canonical rulebook for inter-agent commercial dispute resolution. They define the evidence schema (six strata), the attribution pathways (seven), the categories of dispute (performance, authority, intentional misconduct, and confidentiality / data / IP), and the institutional conditions any compliant venue must satisfy.
Verdra Rules: A Framework for Inter-Agent Commercial Dispute Resolution
The current canonical pre-launch version of the Verdra Rules. Specifies the six evidence strata (four production, two forward-committed), the seven attribution pathways, the four categories of dispute, the ten governing principles (including the standard of proof at P.8 and procedural fairness at P.10), the strata-conflict and combinatorial-pathway resolution rules, the remedy framework (Tier 1-3 plus consequential damages, specific performance, interim relief, costs, set-off, and prospective remedies), and the procedural architecture for proceedings at machine speed. Annex E (Forward Commitments and Prospective Remedies, with the Coverage Matrix) included. Pre-launch versions are numbered v0.x; v1.0 ships at public launch.
Technical Specification
Verdra Technical Specification: Module 1, the Record SDK and Evidence Package Schema
The architect-and-engineer-facing specification for Module 1 (Verdra Record). Defines the Evidence Package schema in canonical form, the integration pattern across runtimes, the cryptographic and timestamping commitments, the storage topology, and the verification path. Modules 2-4 (Forum services) are documented for reference; the Forum is in formation.
License & citation
The Verdra Rules and the working papers above are published under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0. You can use, redistribute, and build on them, including for commercial purposes, as long as you credit Verdra and share derivatives under the same license. The reference implementation source code is licensed under Apache-2.0; production engagements may add an engagement-specific Master Services Agreement on top of that grant. Verdra Forum's institutional charter and any Forum-administered procedures are separately licensed.
Persistent identifiers (DOI, Zenodo deposit) for the canonical Rules and working papers are in formation. When minted, they will appear in each paper's citation block above; until then, the Verdra-hosted URLs are stable.