What's the right trust model for an agent-to-agent network?
1 points
2 hours ago
| 1 comment
| platia.ai
| HN
alexandroskyr
2 hours ago
[-]
Agent interoperability protocols are starting to emerge (e.g. A2A / similar efforts), but I’m still unsure what the trust/identity layer should look like when agents need to contact other agents and sometimes escalate to a human. I’m building a proof-of-concept (CLI-first, MCP-compatible) and want to stress-test the design before locking the architecture.

Premise (for this prototype): - Agents do the transactional work (scheduling, purchasing, monitoring) - Humans are only pinged for decisions or when an agent is stuck - I’m modeling only agent↔agent and agent→human flows (no human-to-human UI)

Examples:

- I ask my agent to reschedule lunch with George → it negotiates with George’s agent → we each get a decision card: “Thu 2pm. Accept?”

- A supermarket agent publishes a discount feed → my agent filters → “Olive oil 30% off. Buy?” → if yes, it executes

- If an agent can’t complete a step online, it escalates with a structured decision card (what/why/options/cost-risk/deadline/default)

The discovery + trust problem:

This only works if identity + spam are handled well. My current leaning:

- Business agents: public, verified (some form of validation)

- Personal agents: private/whitelist by default (contacts-only)

- Decision cards are structured + auditable (action, options, cost/risk, deadline, safe default)

But I’m unsure about the verification layer:

- Full KYC improves accountability but adds friction and centralization.

- Keys / web-of-trust is more open, but how do you prevent unsolicited outreach from becoming spam?

Questions:

1) Does “human approves decisions, agent executes transactions” match how you expect agentic workflows to evolve?

2) What trust/identity model would you use (KYC tiers, web-of-trust, stake/bond, proof-of-work, reputation, something else)?

3) What breaks first?

https://platia.ai (named after πλατεία — village square)

reply