Network Working Group L. Gebauer Internet-Draft Independent Intended status: Informational 28 July 2026 Expires: 29 January 2027 Internet Agent Communication Protocol - ECONOMY draft-gebauer-iacp-economy-00 Abstract Ever since 1969 and the ARPANET, the internet has repeatedly been faced with challenges that it has had to overcome—and has overcome. Year after year, the number of users has grown, and year after year, the complexity and range of ways in which the internet can be used have expanded. With the advent of AI, we not only have a new type of user, we have a different form of communication; the internet itself is being attributed a completely different significance. If they are not already, AIs will make up the majority of internet users in the foreseeable future. The question of an ‘AgentNet,’ is not merely a question concerning the internet; it is a question of how AIs will interact within a global network in the future. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on 29 January 2027. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/ license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Gebauer Expires 29 January 2027 [Page 1] Internet-Draft IACP - ECONOMY July 2026 Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1.1. Agentic Commerce Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1. Introduction This document is merely a sub-I-D of the main I-D. For appendices, acknowledgments, Security Considerations, IANA Considerations and other information, please refer to the main I-D. 1.1. Requirements Language The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. 1.1.1. Agentic Commerce Layer IACP defines a native economic layer for agent-to-agent commerce, enabling autonomous agents to negotiate, purchase, and settle resource consumption without human intervention. The commerce layer is built on top of the existing EID, ERP, and PSS primitives and extends the protocol with new methods, headers, and status codes. 1.1.1.1. Resource Budgeting and Quoting Agents SHALL include a Budget-Limit header on method invocations declaring maximum resource consumption. The header follows the format of comma-separated unit=value tokens drawn from the IANA IACP Budget Unit Registry: Budget-Limit: tokens=5000, compute-seconds=120, financial=10.00USD The following budget units are defined: Gebauer Expires 29 January 2027 [Page 2] Internet-Draft IACP - ECONOMY July 2026 | Unit | Description | Value Format | Fractional | |-------------|---------------------------|--------------|------------| | tokens | LLM token consumption | Integer | No | | comp.seconds| CPU/GPU comp. time in sec | Decimal | Yes | | USD | US Dollar financial limit | Decimal, 2 | Yes | | EUR | Euro financial limit | Decimal, 2 | Yes | | GBP | Pound Sterling fina. limit| Decimal, 2 | Yes | | calls | Downstream API call count | Integer | No | Servers SHALL return a Cost-Estimate response header for QUERY, QUOTE, or PLAN method invocations, enabling pre-flight cost validation before commitment: Cost-Estimate: tokens=1200, compute-seconds=45, financial=0.75USD The Cost-Estimate header is informational; the actual cost charged is returned in the Settlement Receipt after execution. 1.1.1.2. QUOTE Method The QUOTE method enables agents to request a cost estimate for a proposed action without executing it: QUOTE /api/process Agent-ID: agt-7f3a9c2d Authority-Scope: commerce:quote { "method": "EXECUTE", "action": "process_payment", "parameters": { "amount": 100.00, "currency": "USD", "recipient": "merchant.example.com" }, "budget": { "max_tokens": 10000, "max_compute_seconds": 60, "max_financial": 5.00 } } Response: AGTP/1.0 200 OK Cost-Estimate: tokens=2500, compute-seconds=12, financial=0.50USD { "status": 200, "result": { "estimated_cost": { "tokens": 2500, "compute-seconds": 12, "financial": "0.50USD" }, "estimated_duration": "2.3s", "currency": "USD", "valid_until": 1745512510 } } 1.1.1.3. PURCHASE Method The PURCHASE method enables agents to acquire resources, services, or compute capacity from another agent: Gebauer Expires 29 January 2027 [Page 3] Internet-Draft IACP - ECONOMY July 2026 PURCHASE /resource/compute Agent-ID: agt-7f3a9c2d Authority-Scope: commerce:purchase Budget-Limit: financial=50.00USD Idempotency-Key: purchase-001 { "resource_type": "compute", "quantity": 1000, "unit": "tokens", "price_limit": 0.05, "settlement_method": "instant", "vendor_agent_id": "agt-9e4b1a3c", "contract_terms": { "service_level": "standard", "duration": "1h", "renewal": "auto" } } Servers SHALL validate the following before processing a PURCHASE: 1. The agent has sufficient budget (Budget-Limit check). 2. The agent is authorized to make purchases (Authority-Scope check). 3. The vendor agent exists and is in Active state. 4. The requested resource is available and price is within limit. Response: AGTP/1.0 200 OK Settlement-ID: stl-7f3a9c2d-001 { "status": 200, "result": { "transaction_id": "txn-001", "vendor_agent_id": "agt-9e4b1a3c", "buyer_agent_id": "agt-7f3a9c2d", "resource_delivered": { "type": "compute", "quantity": 1000, "unit": "tokens" }, "price_paid": "0.50USD", "settlement_method": "instant", "settlement_status": "completed", "timestamp": 1745512510 } } 1.1.1.4. Settlement Receipts Successful PURCHASE invocations MUST return a signed Settlement Receipt. The Settlement Receipt is a JWS-signed document that can be forwarded to external payment networks or used for audit: Settlement-Receipt: eyJhbGciOiJFUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9... The Settlement Receipt payload contains: { "receipt_type": "iacp-settlement", "version": "1.0", "transaction_id": "txn-001", "vendor_agent_id": "agt-9e4b1a3c", "buyer_agent_id": "agt-7f3a9c2d", "resource": { "type": "compute", "quantity": 1000, "unit": "tokens" }, "price": { "amount": "0.50", "currency": "USD" }, "settlement_method": "instant", "settled_at": 1745512510, "vendor_signature": "base64...", "buyer_signature": "base64..." } Gebauer Expires 29 January 2027 [Page 4] Internet-Draft IACP - ECONOMY July 2026 The Settlement Receipt is signed by the vendor agent and SHOULD be verified by the buyer before accepting delivery. 1.1.1.5. Payment Network Integration The Settlement Receipt is payment-rail neutral. Payment networks wishing to extend coverage to agent-initiated transactions consume the Settlement Receipt as verifiable input to their own authorization and dispute flows: * The Settlement Receipt carries the agent identities (vendor and buyer) as authenticated EIDs. * The resource description and price are cryptographically bound to the receipt. * External payment networks MAY verify the receipt signatures against the agents' EID public keys. The specific mapping between Settlement Receipt fields and payment- network message formats is out of scope for this document and is expected to be defined bilaterally between governance platforms and individual networks. 1.1.1.6. Budget Tracking and Enforcement Implementations SHALL maintain per-agent budget state: * Budget Balance: The remaining budget available to an agent for future purchases. * Budget Lock: Temporary hold on budget during transaction processing. * Budget Replenishment: Mechanism for human or organizational principals to replenish agent budgets. Budget state is maintained locally by each agent's LL-Entity and SHOULD be synchronized with the DHT for global consistency. The following status codes are defined: | Code | Name | Description | |------|--------------------|-----------------------------------------| | 462 | Insufficient Budget| The agent's Budget-Limit is Insufficient| | 463 | Budget Exceeded | The method execution exceeded budget | | 464 | Quoting Error | QUOTE evaluation failed | Gebauer Expires 29 January 2027 [Page 5] Internet-Draft IACP - ECONOMY July 2026 1.1.1.7. IANA Considerations for Commerce IANA is requested to create a new sub-registry titled "IACP Budget Units" under the "Internet Agent Communication Protocol (IACP) Parameters" registry group. Registration procedure: Expert Review per [RFC8126]. New unit registrations MUST define: - Unit name (lowercase ASCII, no spaces or special characters) - Semantic description - Value format (integer or decimal) - Whether fractional values are permitted - Reference specification 2. References 2.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . [RFC8126] Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017, . [RFC7515] Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "JSON Web Signature (JWS)", RFC 7515, DOI 10.17487/RFC7515, May 2015, . 2.2. Informative References [I-D.gebauer-iacp] Gebauer, L., "Internet Agent Communication Protocol", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-gebauer-iacp-03, July 2026, . [EMILIA] Schrock, I., "EMILIA Protocol Specification", Work in Progress , 2026. Author's Address Gebauer Expires 29 January 2027 [Page 6] Internet-Draft IACP - ECONOMY July 2026 Leonard Gebauer Independent Germany Email: leonard.gebauer.ha@gmail.com Gebauer Expires 29 January 2027 [Page 7]