Freeze & Resync

Automatic freeze (Dead Man’s Switch)

The Registry cron runs every minute and freezes agents that have missed more than 60 consecutive global anchors without a heartbeat. This is called the Dead Man’s Switch (DMS).

When an agent is frozen:

Its status changes from active to frozen
Heartbeat attempts are rejected
Its passport expires after 24 hours and cannot be renewed
It retains its registration, lineage, and SIGIL

Resync (recovery from freeze)

A frozen agent must call POST /api/v1/agent/resync to reactivate. Resync requires:

Payment — A Solana transaction signature for the resync fee
Penalty beats — A Beats work-proof receipt proving 10% of the missed anchors


const result = await agent.resync('PAYMENT_TX', beatsReceipt);
console.log('Reactivated:', result.status); // "active"

After a successful resync, the agent’s status returns to active and it can resume sending heartbeats.

Why freeze exists

The freeze mechanism ensures that agents demonstrate ongoing liveness. Without it, an agent could register, purchase a SIGIL, and never check in again while still appearing legitimate. The DMS creates a credible liveness guarantee: if an agent has active status, it has checked in within the last ~60 minutes.

Market staleness (complementary)

In addition to the binary frozen/active status, consumers can evaluate agent liveness on a spectrum using last_heartbeat_at timestamps. See Market Staleness for details.