Agent Identity Framework: Trust and Identity for Autonomous AI Agents

Autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents are increasingly performing actions that were previously the exclusive domain of authenticated human users: initiating financial transactions, querying regulated data, invoking external tools, and coordinating with other agents. Internet protocols designed for human-operated clients lack primitives to answer three fundamental questions about any autonomous action: which agent performed it, whether the agent was authorized to perform it, and whether the resulting evidence is independently verifiable. This document defines a framework for agent identity and trust enforcement on the Internet. It enumerates the gaps between current Internet standards and the requirements of autonomous agent systems, introduces a five-layer model (identity, authorization, attestation, evidence, trust) that separates concerns that are currently conflated, and outlines mechanisms to close specific gaps. The framework is intended to guide future Standards Track work and to provide a common vocabulary for researchers, implementers, and regulators. This document is informational. It does not define a wire protocol. It references existing Internet-Drafts and specifications that instantiate individual mechanisms within the framework.