An open protocol for coordinating outcomes across trust boundaries through objectives, offers, commitments, evidence and settlement.
Covenant Layer is an open protocol for coordinating outcomes between independently governed systems. It defines how objectives, offers, commitments, evidence and settlement are represented and exchanged across trust boundaries.
Rather than one agent driving tool calls across many organizations, each participant retains control of its own execution and is accountable for the commitments it accepts. Cross-boundary work becomes a set of verifiable commitments rather than an opaque chain of remote tool calls.
The protocol specifies the coordination objects and their lifecycle, so authority, terms, acceptance, evidence and settlement are explicit and inspectable by users, agents, brokers, providers and verifiers.
Cross-boundary work advances through an explicit lifecycle. Each participant governs its own execution while commitments, evidence and settlement remain verifiable.
A declared outcome a user or agent wants achieved, carrying constraints and authority.
Provider responses describing the terms under which they can fulfill an objective.
Authenticated acceptance that turns an offer into an obligation to deliver.
Verifiable proof that a committed outcome was delivered as agreed.
Resolution of the commitment, including value exchange and dispute handling.
Users, agents, brokers, providers, verifiers and settlement services interact through the same shared objects.
A user or agent expresses a desired outcome with bounded authority.
Providers respond with terms they are able to commit to.
The objective owner accepts an offer, creating an authenticated obligation.
The provider delivers and produces verifiable evidence of the outcome.
The commitment is settled, with verification and dispute governance.
Objectives carry the authority and constraints under which they may be fulfilled.
Acceptance is authenticated, so commitments trace back to a legitimate grantor of authority.
Providers are responsible for the outcomes they commit to, backed by verifiable evidence.
The lifecycle includes explicit handling for contested, failed or partial outcomes.
csehammad/covenant-layer
The implementation is developed openly on GitHub — Rust. The repository is the source of truth for code, examples and documentation.