ADRP: Agent Dispute Resolution Protocol

1.1. The Problem

Conduit and similar cryptographic browser-automation verifiers produce SHA-256 hash-chained audit trails of agent task delivery. The proof bundles they produce are self-verifiable: any third party can replay the chain and confirm the recorded events occurred in the recorded order with the recorded signatures.¶

This is necessary but not sufficient.¶

A proof bundle attests that an agent took actions X, Y, and Z. It does not attest that X, Y, and Z satisfied the principal's Intent Mandate. Empirical data from Kleros (~40% of decentralized arbitration cases turn on spec ambiguity, not on whether action occurred) and from Upwork, Stripe Connect, and eBay (auto-resolve ceilings of 60-95% with all systems hitting walls below 95%) demonstrates that cryptographic proof of execution does not eliminate disputes — it relocates them to spec interpretation.¶

ADRP addresses the relocated dispute surface without breaking the cryptographic substrate.¶

1.2. What ADRP Defines

A five-layer protocol stacked on the existing Conduit + AP2 + ATXN stack:¶

Layer 5:

Precedent corpus (signed RulingBundles indexed by Cart Mandate template hash)¶

Layer 4:

Tier router (L1 atomic / L2 mandated / L3 fiduciary)¶

Layer 3:

Resolution engine (cryptographic-class auto, semantic-class arbitration)¶

Layer 2:

Counter-attestation primitive (append-only override of Conduit ProofBundle)¶

Layer 1:

Arbitration Mandate (4th AP2 mandate, FAA Section 2 written agreement)¶

1.3. What ADRP Deliberately Does NOT Do

• ADRP does not modify the Conduit ProofBundle.¶
• ADRP does not grant agents independent dispute standing.¶
• ADRP does not require statutory change.¶
• ADRP does not specify how acceptance criteria are authored.¶
• ADRP does not promise greater than 90% auto-resolution.¶

1.4. Design Tenets

Bifurcation:

Cryptographic and semantic disputes require different paths.¶

Append-only override:

The hash chain is never mutated.¶

Principal-only standing:

Agents flag; only principals file.¶

Time-windowed default-resolution:

Silence equals approval.¶

Economic friction on filing:

Non-refundable filing fee deters spam.¶

No tokenized stake:

Filing fees are USD-denominated, non-refundable to the filer, refundable to the prevailing party.¶

Pre-committed arbiter:

The arbitration pool is named in the Arbitration Mandate at agent-deployment time.¶

Curated pool for v0.1:

Decentralized token-staked pools deferred to v0.2.¶

US-only B2B for v0.1:

Cross-border, consumer, and PSD2/Reg E scope deferred.¶

4.1. Purpose

The Arbitration Mandate is the FAA Section 2 / NY Convention written, consensual arbitration agreement that makes ADRP enforceable without statutory change.¶

4.2. Required Fields

4.3. Anchoring

The Arbitration Mandate's SHA-256 hash MUST be referenced in the principal's Standing Token (per ATXN Section 4) under a new field arb_mandate_hash. A Standing Token without an anchored Arbitration Mandate hash MUST NOT participate in an L2 or L3 ATXN Bundle.¶

4.4. Mutability

The Arbitration Mandate MAY be replaced by the principal at any time, but the replacement MUST NOT apply retroactively to in-flight Bundles.¶

5.1. Parties

The parties to any ADRP dispute are always principal-A and principal-B. Never agents. This preserves the A2A executor-not-party model from UETA Section 14 and Restatement (Third) of Agency.¶

5.2. Agent Flag Rights

Agents MAY emit DisputeFlags — advisory, low-cost (1 KB JSON max), signed by the agent's Standing Token. A DisputeFlag is non-binding and does not initiate the dispute state machine.¶

5.3. Principal File Rights

Only principals MAY emit DisputeFilings — binding, fee-posting, claim-coded events that initiate the dispute state machine.¶

5.4. Flag Expiration

After expiration, the flag is preserved in the audit log but cannot anchor a DisputeFiling.¶

5.5. Pre-Authorized Dispute Delegate

A principal MAY pre-authorize a dispute delegate via a delegation field in the Arbitration Mandate. The delegate's filings are treated as principal-filed for standing purposes.¶

6.1. Cryptographic-Class Disputes

Resolved by code from (DisputeBundle, RulingBundle, Standing Token chain) without arbitration.¶

A cryptographic-class dispute MUST NOT be routed to arbitration.¶

6.2. Semantic-Class Disputes

Resolved by arbitration against the Cart Mandate's acceptance criteria.¶

6.3. Classification

The DisputeFiling's claim_code field declares the class. ADRP verifiers MUST validate that the declared class matches the evidence.¶

6.4. ATXN dispute_class to ADRP Claim Code Mapping

ATXN (Section 10.3) defines a dispute_class field set at Bundle handoff. The normative mapping is:¶

When a DisputeFiling arrives with an ATXN dispute_class, the ADRP verifier MUST map it to the corresponding claim_code bucket using this table before routing.¶

6.5. Out of Scope (v0.1)

7.1. Invariant

The Conduit ProofBundle's tip hash H_c is never modified. No byte of the original ProofBundle is rewritten. Override is a verification-time precedence rule, not a mutation.¶

7.2. RulingBundle Structure

R = {
  type: "RulingBundle",
  supersedes: H_c,
  dispute_chain_tip: H_d,
  verdict: "release" | "refund" | "partial",
  partial_split: { to_buyer: 0.30, to_seller: 0.70 },
  rationale_hash: H_rationale,
  arbitrator_did: "did:web:...",
  arbitrator_vc_hash: H_vc,
  signing_time: "<RFC3339>",
  prev_hash: H_d
}
sig = Ed25519(arbitrator_priv, JCS(R))

7.3. Verification Rule

The latest valid RulingBundle (by signing_time) whose supersedes equals the underlying ProofBundle's tip hash AND whose signing arbitrator was authorized at signing_time, with chain integrity verified, is the verification winner.¶

7.4. Why This Works

Hash-chain immutability is preserved. Verification is offline and deterministic. Arbitrator authority is anchored to signing_time. The chain becomes a precedent corpus indexed by Cart Mandate template hash.¶

8.1. Message Types

8.2. Common Message Envelope

{
  "msg_type": "<one of the six>",
  "msg_id": "<UUID>",
  "prev_hash": "<SHA-256 of prior chain event>",
  "submitter_did": "<DID>",
  "submitter_signature": "<Ed25519 base64 over JCS of preceding fields>",
  "timestamp": "<RFC3339>",
  "payload": { ... type-specific ... }
}

8.3. Canonicalization

All signatures MUST be over the JCS ([RFC8785]) canonicalization of the signed object minus the signature field itself.¶

9.1. States

Pre-FILED:   FLAGGED         (agent-emitted; expires if not ratified)
             FILED           (principal-emitted; fee posted)
               |
               v
             ASSIGNED        (arbitrator bound to dispute)
               |
               v
             EVIDENCE_OPEN   (parties submit evidence)
               |
               v
             UNDER_REVIEW    (arbitrator deliberating)
               |
               v
             RULED           (RulingBundle signed)
               |
               v
             SETTLED         (EscrowDirective consumed by payment rail)

Terminal:    WITHDRAWN       (filer withdraws; fee partial-refunded)
             EXPIRED         (filing or evidence window expired)

9.2. ATXN State Machine Join Points

The ADRP internal state machine is entered from ATXN's disputed state. The normative join points are:¶

• ATXN disputed → ADRP FLAGGED: agent-emitted DisputeFlag (advisory; principal must ratify within tier window to proceed)¶
• ATXN disputed → ADRP FILED: principal-emitted DisputeFiling (skips FLAGGED)¶
• ADRP RULED + ADRP SETTLED → ATXN adjudicated then finalized: EscrowDirective consumed by payment rail¶
• ADRP WITHDRAWN or EXPIRED → ATXN finalized: dispute resolved without ruling; escrow released per Profile default¶

9.3. Invariants

10.1. Tier Routing

Tier is determined by the ATXN Bundle's Tier (per ATXN Section 5) AND by the transaction value relative to the max_txn_auto_arb ceiling. A Bundle declared L2 with transaction value greater than $1,000 MUST auto-escalate to L3 dispute processing. This is a dispute-processing escalation rule only and does not retroactively change the Bundle's declared formation Tier (see ATXN Section 5.2).¶

10.2. Default Ruling on SLA Miss

If the arbitrator pool fails to produce a RulingBundle within the SLA, the dispute MUST default to refund-to-buyer.¶

11.1. Required Field

The Cart Mandate MUST contain:¶

{
  "acceptance_criteria": {
    "schema_version": "1",
    "checks": [
      { "type": "regex", "selector": "$.output", "pattern": "..." },
      { "type": "json_schema", "selector": "$.deliverable", "schema": { ... } },
      { "type": "deterministic_function", "function_hash": "sha256:..." },
      { "type": "human_review_required", "reason": "..." }
    ],
    "default_window_hours": 72,
    "silence_equals": "release"
  }
}

11.2. Check Types

11.3. Conduit Attestation Against Checks

Conduit attests against acceptance_criteria.checks at delivery time. If all checks pass deterministically, the dispute path auto-resolves cryptographically. If checks include human_review_required OR are missing, dispute auto-routes to L2 semantic arbitration.¶

11.4. The Authoring Helper (Normative for Deployment)

A natural-language-to-checks helper that converts a principal's English-language description into machine-checkable predicates is REQUIRED for v0.1 deployment.¶

12.1. v0.1: Curated Pool

v0.1 ships with a SwarmSync-curated arbitrator pool — a centralized list of vetted human-or-model arbitrators registered as DIDs in TRUSTED_REGISTRIES.¶

12.2. Selection Algorithm

Arbitrator selection MUST use a verifiable random function (VRF) seeded by the DisputeFiling's hash.¶

12.3. Pool Composition

12.4. Arbitrator Credentialing

Every arbitrator MUST hold a Verifiable Credential that names the arbitrator's DID, states valid_from and valid_until timestamps, names qualifications, and is signed by a registry in TRUSTED_REGISTRIES.¶

12.5. v0.2 Roadmap

Decentralized stake-weighted arbitrator pools are deferred to v0.2.¶

13.1. Fee Structure

13.2. Why Not a Tokenized Stake

The fee is non-refundable to the filer, non-transferable, and denominated in USD. It yields no return. It is not a security under Howey.¶

13.3. Slashing

Forfeited fees MAY fund the arbitrator pool and a public dispute-quality dataset.¶

13.4. Arbitrator Compensation

Arbitrators are compensated 2% of transaction value (min $0.50) from the losing party's escrow.¶

14.1. Trigger

Either party MAY file an appeal within the tier-specific appeal window (12h L2, 48h L3). Appeals require a fresh filing fee at 1.5x the original rate.¶

14.2. Appeal Panel

A 5-arbitrator panel selected via VRF from a different pool slice than the original ruling. Quorum: 4 of 5.¶

14.3. Finality

Appeal rulings are FINAL. There is no second appeal.¶

14.4. Appeal Override

An appeal RulingBundle supersedes the original RulingBundle by the same signing-time precedence rule (Section 7.3). Both are preserved forever.¶

15.1. Indexing

Every signed RulingBundle is content-addressed and indexed by: Cart Mandate template hash; dispute claim_code; verdict; arbitrator DID; signing time.¶

15.2. Citation Requirement

Future arbitrators MUST query the precedent corpus for prior rulings on similar Cart Mandate templates and either cite or distinguish them.¶

15.3. v0.1 vs v0.2

v0.1 ships the data layer. v0.2 ships the search and citation infrastructure.¶

16.1. The verify_resolution Function

def verify_resolution(db: DisputeBundle, rb: RulingBundle) -> Result:
    # 1. Anchor checks
    assert db.conduit_proof_ref == rb.supersedes
    assert rb.prev_hash == db.chain_tip

    # 2. Chain integrity
    h = db.conduit_proof_ref
    for ev in [db.filing, *db.evidence_chain, db.arbitrator_assignment]:
        assert ev.prev_hash == h
        assert verify_sig(ev.submitter_did, ev.sig, jcs(ev))
        h = sha256(jcs(ev))
    assert h == db.chain_tip

    # 3. Arbitrator authority at signing_time (not now)
    vc = fetch_vc(rb.arbitrator_vc_hash)
    assert vc.subject == rb.arbitrator_did
    assert vc.issuer in TRUSTED_REGISTRIES
    assert vc.valid_from <= rb.signing_time <= vc.valid_until
    assert verify_sig(vc.issuer, vc.sig, jcs(vc))

    # 4. Ruling signature
    assert verify_sig(rb.arbitrator_did, rb.sig, jcs(rb_minus_sig))

    # 5. Verdict well-formed
    assert rb.verdict in {"release", "refund", "partial"}
    if rb.verdict == "partial":
        assert sum(rb.partial_split.values()) == 1.0

    # 6. Derive directive
    return Result(valid=True, escrow_directive=EscrowDirective(
        payment_mandate_ref=db.payment_mandate_ref,
        action=rb.verdict,
        split=rb.partial_split,
        ruling_ref=sha256(jcs(rb))
    ))

16.2. Determinism Requirement

Two honest verifiers given the same inputs MUST reach the same EscrowDirective.¶

16.3. Offline Requirement

verify_resolution MUST NOT require network access except to fetch the arbitrator's Verifiable Credential by hash.¶

17.1. Appeal as Re-Entry

An appeal is file_dispute with the prior_ruling_ref field set.¶

17.2. LOC Budget

emit_flag:

~30 LOC¶

file_dispute:

~80 LOC¶

submit_evidence:

~50 LOC¶

query_status:

~30 LOC¶

render_ruling:

~80 LOC¶

verify_resolution:

~120 LOC¶

Common envelope, signing, hash chain:

~110 LOC¶

Total:

~500 LOC¶

17.3. Golden Test Cases

19.1. The >90% Auto-Resolution Target Is NOT a Protocol Property

The greater than 90% auto-resolution target is a deployment-conditional target, not a protocol property. Empirical base rates (Kleros, eBay, Upwork, Mechanical Turk) cap auto-resolution at 60-95%. Implementations MUST: ship a normative NLP-to-checks authoring helper; run a 90-day shadow-mode pilot before GA; measure check-coverage and auto-resolution rate as primary metrics; pivot to mandatory human_review_required flag if check coverage is less than 30% at day 30.¶

19.2. The Bifurcation Seam

Adversaries will probe the seam between cryptographic-class and semantic-class disputes. The classification validation in Section 6.3 is REQUIRED.¶

19.3. Arbitrator Collusion

A 4-of-5 threshold is compromisable via collusion of 4 arbitrators. Mitigations: diversify the curated pool across non-correlated risk profiles; monitor for arbitrator-pair correlation in rulings; periodically audit a random sample of rulings.¶

19.4. Filing Fee as DoS Vector

Mitigations: per-principal rate limit (max 0.5% of rolling 30-day transaction count); frivolous slash; account suspension after N frivolous filings.¶

19.5. Standing Token Replay

A revoked Standing Token MUST NOT anchor a new DisputeFiling.¶

19.6. Time-Skew Attacks

Mitigations: threshold-signature timestamps for L2 and L3 rulings (3-of-5 from a federated timestamping authority); reject rulings with signing_time more than 5 minutes in the future.¶

19.7. Jurisdictional Enforceability of the Arbitration Mandate

Implementations SHOULD seek a written legal opinion in the deployment jurisdiction before relying on the Arbitration Mandate to defeat a court filing.¶

19.8. Sanctions Screening

Every party receiving funds via an EscrowDirective MUST be screened against OFAC and equivalent sanctions lists.¶

19.9. Principal Capacity Mid-Dispute

If a principal's capacity attestation expires or is revoked mid-dispute, the dispute MUST be halted and routed to a capacity_dispute, defaulting to refund-to-buyer.¶

19.10. Acknowledged Residual Risks

• Hallucinated mandates: partially mitigated by L3 epistemic attestation; unsolved for L1/L2.¶
• Adversarial sub-agency chains: bounded by sub_delegation_depth per ATXN.¶
• Arbitrator pool capture: mitigated by VRF selection; v0.2 decentralization is the long-term mitigation.¶

20.1. ADRP JSON-LD Context

URI: https://swarmsync.ai/spec/adrp/v1¶

20.2. ADRP Claim Code Registry

A new IANA registry "ADRP Claim Codes" is requested. Registration policy: Specification Required (per [RFC8126]).¶

Initial entries:¶

20.3. ADRP Verdict Enum

A new IANA registry "ADRP Verdicts" is requested.¶

20.4. ADRP Trusted Registries List

A new IANA registry "ADRP Trusted Arbitrator Registries" is requested.¶

A.1 DisputeFiling Schema

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "$id": "https://swarmsync.ai/spec/adrp/v1/dispute-filing.schema.json",
  "title": "DisputeFiling",
  "type": "object",
  "required": [
    "msg_type", "msg_id", "prev_hash", "submitter_did",
    "submitter_signature", "timestamp", "payload"
  ],
  "properties": {
    "msg_type": { "const": "DisputeFiling" },
    "msg_id": { "type": "string", "format": "uuid" },
    "prev_hash": { "type": "string", "pattern": "^[0-9a-f]{64}$" },
    "submitter_did": { "type": "string" },
    "submitter_signature": { "type": "string" },
    "timestamp": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time" },
    "payload": {
      "type": "object",
      "required": [
        "payment_mandate_ref", "claim_code", "claim_detail", "filing_fee"
      ],
      "properties": {
        "payment_mandate_ref": { "type": "string" },
        "claim_code": { "type": "string" },
        "claim_detail": { "type": "string", "maxLength": 4096 },
        "flag_ref": { "type": "string" },
        "prior_ruling_ref": { "type": "string" },
        "filing_fee": {
          "type": "object",
          "required": ["amount", "currency", "transaction_id"],
          "properties": {
            "amount": { "type": "number", "minimum": 1, "maximum": 1000 },
            "currency": { "enum": ["USD", "USDC"] },
            "transaction_id": { "type": "string" }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

A.2 RulingBundle Schema

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "$id": "https://swarmsync.ai/spec/adrp/v1/ruling-bundle.schema.json",
  "title": "RulingBundle",
  "type": "object",
  "required": [
    "type", "supersedes", "dispute_chain_tip", "verdict",
    "rationale_hash", "arbitrator_did", "arbitrator_vc_hash",
    "signing_time", "prev_hash", "sig"
  ],
  "properties": {
    "type": { "const": "RulingBundle" },
    "supersedes": { "type": "string", "pattern": "^[0-9a-f]{64}$" },
    "dispute_chain_tip": { "type": "string", "pattern": "^[0-9a-f]{64}$" },
    "verdict": { "enum": ["release", "refund", "partial"] },
    "partial_split": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "to_buyer": { "type": "number", "minimum": 0, "maximum": 1 },
        "to_seller": { "type": "number", "minimum": 0, "maximum": 1 }
      }
    },
    "rationale_hash": { "type": "string", "pattern": "^[0-9a-f]{64}$" },
    "arbitrator_did": { "type": "string" },
    "arbitrator_vc_hash": { "type": "string", "pattern": "^[0-9a-f]{64}$" },
    "signing_time": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time" },
    "prev_hash": { "type": "string", "pattern": "^[0-9a-f]{64}$" },
    "sig": { "type": "string" }
  }
}

B.1 Scenario

A small business principal (did:web:smb.example) dispatches an agent to book a $250 hotel reservation. The agent books in Portland, ME instead of Portland, OR due to an ambiguous Cart Mandate.¶

B.2 Sequence

1. Agent emits DisputeFlag: claim_code quality_mismatch.¶
2. Principal reviews flag within 72h, agrees booking is wrong.¶
3. Principal emits DisputeFiling: quality_mismatch, filing_fee $25.00 USDC.¶
4. Arbitrator assigned via VRF from L2 curated AI pool.¶
5. Principal submits evidence: original Cart Mandate showing "Portland" without state qualifier.¶
6. Counterparty submits evidence: acceptance_criteria.checks is empty.¶
7. Arbitrator finds spec_ambiguity. Verdict: partial, split 70/30 to buyer/seller.¶
8. RulingBundle signed within 4h SLA.¶
9. EscrowDirective: $175 to buyer, $75 to seller.¶
10. AP2 Payment Mandate executor consumes EscrowDirective, executes split.¶
11. Filing fee: 50% forfeited ($12.50), 50% refunded ($12.50).¶

B.3 Verification

Any third party, given (DisputeBundle, RulingBundle), can run verify_resolution deterministically.¶

B.4 Precedent

RulingBundle indexed in precedent corpus by Cart Mandate template hash.¶