Trust in Depth

Trust in Depth is a framework for layered trust mechanisms that compose into robust trust across the full lifecycle of agent interaction — communication, commerce, and commitment.

The Problem

AI agents are entering commerce without the infrastructure to connect their actions to the legal and social systems that everything else depends on. Every major agentic commerce protocol — Verifiable Intent, Universal Commerce Protocol, Agent Payments Protocol, Agentic Commerce Protocol — handles the transaction moment. None handles what comes after: persistent identity, enforceable agreements, or structured dispute resolution.

The Architecture

Trust in Depth operates through a Resolver — a simple, stable enforcement interface (the "thin waist") between heterogeneous identity standards below and diverse agent frameworks above.

• The Framework — Four-tier identity, the interaction spectrum, the Resolver family
• Identity Bridge — How credentials from VI, AP2, UCP, ACP become protocol-agnostic on-chain attestations
• Agreement Infrastructure — Why purchase transactions are the simplest case
• Dispute Resolution — The AAAResolverV1 and the ADR lifecycle
• Trust Boundary — The permanent gap between digital systems and human reality

Protocol Landscape

• Verifiable Intent (VI) — Mastercard's SD-JWT credential format
• Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) — Google/Shopify composable commerce
• Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) — Google's VDC-based trust layer
• Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) — OpenAI/Stripe checkout API

Implementation

• Contract Mapping — Solidity-level integration with Integra's smart contracts
• EAS Attestations — On-chain attestations vs. API gateways
• Real-World Scenario — End-to-end: AI agent purchase with dispute resolution