{ "acronym": "TAP", "adoption": { "by": "Visa's own launch announcement, naming ecosystem participants including Cloudflare", "level": "claimed", "probe_run": null }, "aliases": [ "Trusted Agent Protocol" ], "analog": "Signed merchant/client verification layered on card-network trust", "collisions": [], "discovery": { "mechanism": "Signed HTTP headers/body during browsing and payment interactions, verified against Visa's Public Keys Retrieval Service", "path": "/keys" }, "dispute": { "claims": [ "Visa's own text frames TAP as complementary to, not a replacement for, bilateral merchant-agent agreements and other bot-detection signals (user-agent headers, IP allow-listing, registries)." ], "summary": "TAP is a single-vendor (Visa) specification, not an open standard; it is designed for the two-sided scenario where the agent is initially unknown to the merchant, and is explicitly scoped to commerce (browsing and payment interactions), unlike the general-purpose Web Bot Auth." }, "evidence": [ { "claim": "Visa's launch announcement introduces the Trusted Agent Protocol as an ecosystem-led framework for AI commerce, naming participating partners", "date": "2025-10-14", "label": "VERIFIED", "url": "https://investor.visa.com/news/news-details/2025/Visa-Introduces-Trusted-Agent-Protocol-An-Ecosystem-Led-Framework-for-AI-Commerce/default.aspx" }, { "claim": "Visa's merchant specification defines a Public Key Retrieval operation (GET /keys with a keyID parameter, returning a JWK) used to verify agent-recognition signatures and a Visa-signed ID Token compliant with RFC 7519/7515", "date": "2026-09-06", "label": "VERIFIED", "url": "https://developer.visa.com/capabilities/trusted-agent-protocol/trusted-agent-protocol-specifications" } ], "form": "http-header", "governance": "Visa (single-vendor specification, published for merchant/developer adoption)", "group": null, "history": [ { "date": "2026-09-05", "note": "seeded from Exa Agent research run" }, { "date": "2026-09-06", "note": "verified against Visa's live merchant specification page and the 2025-10-14 launch announcement" } ], "id": "tap", "implementation": "prototype", "last_verified": "2026-09-06", "name": "Visa Trusted Agent Protocol", "native_status": "Active vendor-led merchant specification", "origin": { "date": "2025-10", "org": "Visa (with Cloudflare as an early ecosystem participant)" }, "part_of": null, "parties": [ "agent-site", "agent-payment" ], "phase": "candidate", "probe": { "method": "GET", "on_absent": "The referenced key cannot be retrieved, so the agent-recognition signature or Visa ID Token cannot be verified", "parse": "200 response body is a JWK object (kty, kid, use, alg, and RSA/EC key material) matching the keyID used to sign the agent's request or the Visa-issued ID Token", "path": "https://{tap-key-service}/keys?keyID={kid}" }, "question": "How does a merchant recognize that an approved commerce agent, rather than a crawler or fraudulent bot, is interacting with its site or API?", "scope": "commerce", "spec_url": "https://developer.visa.com/capabilities/trusted-agent-protocol/trusted-agent-protocol-specifications", "step": "identify", "summary_md": "Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol (TAP) lets a merchant recognize that an \"approved agent with commerce intent\" — rather than a scraper, reseller bot, or attacker — is interacting with its website or API, and lets the merchant request additional information (payment, consumer email) back from that agent [1]. It is designed specifically for the case where the agent is not already known to the merchant through a bilateral agreement: instead of user-agent strings, IP allow-lists, approved-agent registries, or shared keys, TAP carries linked, verifiable, purpose-identifying, time-bound signed credentials in the request headers or body [2].\n\nIt solves agent recognition across two specific interaction types: a browsing interaction (an agent, acting for a consumer with commerce intent, checks product availability, size/color and final cost) and a payment interaction (the agent supplies everything needed to complete a purchase or gain paid access to a merchant resource) [2]. Verification relies on a Visa-run Public Keys Retrieval Service (`GET /keys`, returning a JWK by keyID) and a Visa-issued ID Token — a JWT compliant with RFC 7519, signed per RFC 7515, carrying standard and Visa-private claims [2]. It does not replace existing bot-detection signals — Visa's own text frames it as one more, more efficient, signal merchants can choose to check, and any of these signatures can simply be ignored by merchants that have not adopted TAP [2]. It is also explicitly scoped to commerce, unlike the general-purpose Web Bot Auth; the two overlap conceptually (both sign HTTP requests to prove client identity) but serve different scopes and are governed by different parties.\n\nCurrent state: launched by Visa on 2025-10-14 as an \"ecosystem-led framework for AI commerce,\" naming early partners [1]. As of this check (2026-09-06) Visa Developer publishes a full merchant specification covering the trust model, agent recognition signature, consumer recognition, contextual data, payment object, card metadata, credential hashing, and the ID Token format [2] — this is a live, vendor-maintained document rather than a versioned, dated standard.\n\nWho implements it: Visa (issuer of the ID Token and key service) and named ecosystem participants from the 2025 launch, including Cloudflare per the earlier seed research (not independently re-verified as an implementer of this exact spec in this pass). No independent, non-Visa implementation was confirmed here.\n\nDisputed or unknown: because this is a single-vendor specification without a formal versioning scheme visible on the page, dating a specific \"current version\" is not possible from the page alone; whether other card networks will adopt a compatible or competing scheme is unresolved.", "track": "single-vendor", "version": { "date": null, "label": "Current merchant specification, 2026, published on Visa Developer" } }