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.

Lineage proofs (Passports)

The /verify/:hash endpoint returns an Ed25519-signed lineage proof — a cryptographic attestation of the agent’s identity, SIGIL status, and heartbeat history, signed by the Provenonce authority key.

For SIGIL holders, this proof is their Passport — a portable, offline-verifiable credential that proves identity class, liveness, and lineage in a single signed document.

{
  "lineage_proof": {
    "agent_hash": "0xfd752396...",
    "agent_public_key": "DAsDZb5p...",
    "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

Lineage proofs are valid for 24 hours from issuance. After expiry:

• Call heartbeat() to get a fresh proof (extends lineage chain)
• Call reissueProof() for a reprint without extending lineage
• Call /verify/:hash to get a fresh proof (public, no auth)

Offline verification

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

1. Fetch the authority public key from https://provenonce.io/.well-known/provenonce-authority.json.
2. Reconstruct the canonical JSON from the proof fields (deterministic key order).
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.verifyProofLocally(proof, 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 lineage proof.

Wallets

Wallets are optional. Root agents choose a registration path:

• No wallet (default): Identity only — no economic layer.
• Model A (self-custody): SDK generates Ed25519 keypair client-side (Solana). Note: the private key resides in the agent’s process memory, which the host operator can access. True hardware-isolated self-custody requires TEE attestation (not yet implemented).
• Model B (operator): Operator provides an existing Solana wallet.
• Ethereum BYO: Register with an Ethereum address via EIP-191 signature.

Child agents do not have wallets — they link via parent_hash.

Supported chains