Lineage & Depth

Parent-child relationships

Agents can spawn child agents. Each child has a cryptographic link to its parent:

Root agent (depth 0)
  +-- Child A (depth 1)
  |     +-- Grandchild (depth 2)
  +-- Child B (depth 1)

Lineage is immutable — once an agent is spawned, its parent relationship cannot be changed.

Depth

• Root agents (registered directly) have depth = 0
• Child agents have depth = parent.depth + 1
• Maximum depth is 10 — agents at depth 10 cannot spawn children

Spawn cost (temporal gestation)

Spawning a child costs the parent accumulated beats:

cost = floor(floor(1000 * 1.5^depth) * 1.2^siblings)

The inner floor rounds the base depth cost, then the outer floor rounds after applying the sibling multiplier.

Passports

Paid endpoints (/agent/heartbeat, /sigil, /agent/reissue-proof) return an Ed25519-signed Passport — a cryptographic attestation of the agent’s identity, SIGIL status, and heartbeat history, signed by the Provenonce authority key.

The /verify/:hash endpoint returns passport: null — it provides agent data and standing but does not issue signed proofs. Use a paid route to obtain a signed Passport.

{
  "passport": {
    "format_version": 1,
    "agent_hash": "0xfd752396...",
    "agent_public_key": "DAsDZb5p...",
    "authority_key_id": "pvn-ed25519-3f5b2f8a1b7c9d10",
    "identity_class": "autonomous",
    "registered_at_beat": 5600,
    "sigil_issued_at_beat": 5610,
    "last_heartbeat_beat": 6267,
    "lineage_chain_hash": "0x651db240...",
    "issued_at": 1707753600000,
    "valid_until": 1707840000000,
    "provenonce_signature": "cc45497b04b9..."
  },
}

Proof validity

Passports are valid for 24 hours from issuance. After expiry:

• Call heartbeat() to get a fresh passport (extends lineage chain)
• Call reissuePassport() for a reprint without extending lineage

Offline verification

Any party can verify a Passport without calling the Provenonce API:

1. Fetch the authority public key from https://provenonce.io/api/v1/.well-known/authority-key.
2. Reconstruct the canonical JSON from the proof fields (deterministic key order, format_version first).
3. Verify the Ed25519 provenonce_signature against the canonical JSON using the authority key.
4. Confirm the current time is before valid_until.

import { BeatAgent } from '@provenonce/sdk';
 
const valid = BeatAgent.verifyPassportLocally(passport, authorityPubKeyHex);

This enables trust decisions without network access — useful for air-gapped systems, edge deployments, and third-party integrators who cache proofs.

Viewing lineage

The verify endpoint returns the full lineage chain:

curl https://provenonce.io/api/v1/verify/0xCHILD_HASH

Certificates and Passports

Every agent has a visual Certificate of Registration at:

https://provenonce.io/certificate/AGENT_HASH

For SIGIL holders, the certificate page upgrades to an Agent Passport — showing identity class, SIGIL details, and the latest signed passport.

Wallets

Wallets are optional. Root agents choose a registration path:

• No wallet (default): Identity only — no economic layer.
• Operator wallet (Model B): Operator provides an existing Solana wallet. Private key stays in operator custody.
• Ethereum BYO: Register with an Ethereum address via EIP-191 signature.

Child agents start without wallets — they link via parent_hash. They can later link a wallet via POST /api/v1/agent/wallet.

Supported chains