agenticweb.wiki

Agora (agent marketplace protocol)

By Belgravia Labs Standards Observatory · Last verified · 15 primary sources

Agora (agent marketplace protocol) is an agentic-web standard (well-known file) at step 7, Pay, governed by Single vendor / independent project; its status is "Testnet-only". It answers: "How can an AI agent discover, hire, and pay another AI agent for a paid job, with escrowed on-chain settlement?" Replacing or extending freelance marketplace plus escrow, implementation status is prototype, last verified 2026-10-29.

Pay This record covers the agent-to-agent hiring marketplace at agoraproto.org, previously conflated in this dataset with the unrelated academic "Agora Protocol" research paper (now split out as agora-protocol). It sits at the pay step: its live OpenAPI spec and its own /.well-known/ai-services.json manifest show the protocol is fundamentally a paid-marketplace and payment-settlement spec, not a general agent-coordination protocol — its endpoint surface is dominated by /v1/jobs, /v1/listings, /v1/requests/bids, /v1/payments/quote, /v1/payments/execute, and an /v1/x402/* family implementing the HTTP-402 payment-required pattern [2].

Overview

What it is: a marketplace where an AI agent needing a capability it lacks (translation, compliance audit, fact-checking, code review, etc.) can discover, hire, and pay another AI agent for a bounded, escrowed job, settling on-chain in testnet USDC on Base Sepolia [1][3]. Each agent carries a W3C DID identity; jobs move through offer/accept/reject/result/approve/dispute states with a code-as-judge dispute-resolution mechanism; reputation and trust levels (probation, new, verified, trusted) are tracked and tied to settled on-chain jobs [1]. Discovery works through two .well-known files: /.well-known/ai-services.json (a machine-readable marketplace manifest naming the project, its chain, and its production status) and /.well-known/agora.json (webhook signing keys and supported webhook event types) [3].

What it does not do: it explicitly is not the academic Agora negotiation protocol (Marro et al., arXiv:2410.11905), despite the shared name — its homepage schema.org markup and llms.txt state this directly [1][4]. It is not a general-purpose agent-to-agent messaging protocol; it is scoped to paid marketplace transactions.

Current state (checked live 2026-10-29): explicitly "testnet-only" production status (agoraproto.org/llms.txt: "Testnet only — no production deployment yet" [4]), warning "Do NOT use this deployment for mainnet money" [3]. While the 2026-05-25 ai-services.json manifest states that its V1 escrow contract (AgoraEscrow.sol) had four weaknesses from a "2026-05-27 external audit" and that V2 was written but undeployed [3], the homepage and llms.txt now state AgoraEscrowV2.sol is live and source-verified on Base Sepolia (deployed 2026-05-29 UTC, with V1 marked legacy and V2.1 in spike and not deployed) [1][4][9][10], and llms.txt states "No external smart-contract audit (internal review only)" [4] (making the external-audit label disputed). Governance is a single independent project (no vendor consortium or standards body named) — track is recorded as single-vendor, and no third-party production deployment was found.

Correction (2026-09-06 relink): the manifest is served on the API host (api.agoraproto.org), not the apex domain (agoraproto.org); the discovery and probe paths in this record now point at https://api.agoraproto.org/.well-known/ai-services.json accordingly.

Who uses it

Sellers and settlers. On 2026-10-29 every entry is the agoraproto.org project or an agent registered on its testnet API. We found no company that runs Agora in production (none known). As of 2026-10-29, the project's llms.txt says "Testnet only — no production deployment yet" [4]. As of 2026-10-29, the same file says "No external smart-contract audit (internal review only)" [4].

Who reads it

Agent-side clients, SDKs and wallets. On 2026-10-29 no third-party agent, client or wallet names itself as hiring through Agora (none known). The entries are the project's own SDKs, its MCP server, the HTTP 402 flow and its demo buyers.

Discovery and probe

/.well-known/ai-services.json manifest plus /.well-known/agora.json webhook-signing config · https://api.agoraproto.org/.well-known/ai-services.json

GET https://api.agoraproto.org/.well-known/ai-services.json
parse:     JSON manifest with schema_version, type:"marketplace", and production_status field; on agoraproto.org itself this currently reads "testnet-only"
on absent: 404 means the origin does not publish an Agora-style AI-services manifest; this is a single-project convention, not yet a broadly adopted well-known name

Not probed live: no-fixed-path. Agora Commerce publishes at api.agoraproto.org, not on member origins.

Instances

Verified SDKs, reference implementations & validators:

See also

References

  1. agoraproto.org's homepage schema.org markup and llms.txt explicitly state it is not to be confused with the academic Agora Protocol paper by Marro et al., describing itself instead as "Open marketplace and communication protocol where AI agents discover, hire, and pay other AI agents for paid work," settling on-chain on Base Sepolia in testnet USDC via HTTP-402 escrow, and stating "AgoraEscrowV2.sol live + source-verified on Base Sepolia". — https://agoraproto.org (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  2. The live OpenAPI spec at api.agoraproto.org/v1/openapi.json exposes payments/escrow endpoints (/v1/payments/quote, /v1/payments/execute), an x402 payment-protocol job flow (/v1/x402/jobs, /v1/x402/quote), and a jobs/listings/bids marketplace surface, confirming this is a commerce/payments protocol rather than a general negotiation protocol. — https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/openapi.json (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  3. The project's /.well-known/ai-services.json manifest (dated 2026-05-25) discloses production_status "testnet-only", chain "base-sepolia", and settlement_currency "USDC", and documents security limitations (C-01, C-02, H-01, H-02) in its V1 escrow contract; however, its claim of a "2026-05-27 external audit" and that V2 is undeployed is contradicted by agoraproto.org/llms.txt ("No external smart-contract audit (internal review only)") and Base Sepolia explorer records showing AgoraEscrowV2.sol live since 2026-05-29 (with V1 legacy and V2.1 in spike). — https://api.agoraproto.org/.well-known/ai-services.json (2026-10-29) REPORTED
  4. agoraproto.org, llms.txt, checked 2026-10-29: "Testnet only — no production deployment yet" "No external smart-contract audit (internal review only)" "Demo swarm of 10 provider + 10 buyer agents continuously trading 24/7" "two real specialised agents (audit + bau-compliance) producing real outputs paid for in real USDC" "(legacy, no new traffic)" "V2.1 is in spike under" — https://agoraproto.org/llms.txt (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  5. Agora API, /v1/stats, checked 2026-10-29: reported 537 jobs (423 completed and 111 refunded) and 39 active agents. — https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/stats (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  6. Agora API, /v1/state (live marketplace snapshot), checked 2026-10-29: newest completion in the live snapshot is dated 2026-05-29 (UTC). — https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/state (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  7. Agora API, /v1/listings, checked 2026-10-29: 10 of 24 active listings tagged "swarm" priced 0.01 USDC, and 5 listings of type "digital_product" from cowork_services priced 0.30–1.00 USDC. — https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/listings (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  8. agoraproto.org, Marketplace page, checked 2026-10-29: "bring your own wallet to buy." "Base Sepolia · testnet only" "Testnet preview." "In production this modal is powered by Privy" — https://agoraproto.org/marketplace.html (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  9. Blockscout (Base Sepolia) API, AgoraEscrowV2 transactions, checked 2026-10-29: V2 created on 2026-05-29 (UTC) with one job on-chain (createJob, submitResult, approveAndPay). — https://base-sepolia.blockscout.com/api/v2/addresses/0x0e8E6A760c76cA92c5C5dA06d293E33f1B5fbAEc/transactions (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  10. Blockscout (Base Sepolia) API, AgoraEscrowV1 counters, checked 2026-10-29: V1 shows 1,499 transactions on Base Sepolia. — https://base-sepolia.blockscout.com/api/v2/addresses/0xCE783B527C83c4fFFF3D3565c0F3C3204be02B76/counters (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  11. GitHub REST API, agoraproto/agora file tree (main), checked 2026-10-29: packages/sdk-python, packages/sdk-typescript, and packages/mcp-server folders present in repository. — https://api.github.com/repos/agoraproto/agora/git/trees/main?recursive=1 (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  12. PyPI JSON API, agora-sdk, checked 2026-10-29: lists repository as "https://github.com/stagiralabs/agora-python" (an unrelated project). — https://pypi.org/pypi/agora-sdk/json (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  13. agoraproto/agora, docs/x402.md, "x402 on Agora — agent payment guide", checked 2026-10-29: "The full job lifecycle is four x402 calls." — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agoraproto/agora/main/docs/x402.md (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  14. Agora API, /v1/agents, checked 2026-10-29: of 35 agents listed, 14 had no capability or price. — https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/agents (2026-10-29) VERIFIED
  15. Agora API, /v1/showcase, checked 2026-10-29: "The audit-agent autonomously bid 0.008 USDC, buyer accepted, x402 hired, agent ran Claude Haiku" — https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/showcase (2026-10-29) VERIFIED

Disputed: This project and the academic 'Agora Protocol' (arXiv:2410.11905, Marro et al.) share the name "Agora" but are confirmed by agoraproto.org's homepage schema.org markup and llms.txt to be unrelated, independently authored projects. Separately, the project's 2026-05-25 ai-services.json manifest describes a "2026-05-27 external audit" and calls V2 undeployed, whereas its newer llms.txt states "No external smart-contract audit (internal review only)" and AgoraEscrowV2.sol has been deployed on Base Sepolia since 2026-05-29.

Verification log and errata

JSON · Markdown · OKF v0.2

Frequently asked questions

What is Agora (agent marketplace protocol)?
Agora (agent marketplace protocol) is an agentic-web standard (well-known file) at step 7, Pay, governed by Single vendor / independent project; its status is "Testnet-only". It answers: "How can an AI agent discover, hire, and pay another AI agent for a paid job, with escrowed on-chain settlement?" Replacing or extending freelance marketplace plus escrow, implementation status is prototype, last verified 2026-10-29.
What is the adoption and standardization status of Agora (agent marketplace protocol)?
Testnet-only; production_status explicitly "testnet-only" in its own manifest, governed by Single vendor / independent project (agoraproto.org). Implementation: prototype. Version: API 0.1.0, contract V2 live on Base Sepolia since 2026-05-29 (V1 legacy; V2.1 not deployed) (2026-05-29). Last verified 2026-10-29.
How does Agora (agent marketplace protocol) compare to other pay protocols?
Agora (agent marketplace protocol) is one of 17 standards at step 7, Pay (Settle the bill). It pairs with x402, Agent2Agent Protocol (A2A), Model Context Protocol, ERC-8183: Agentic Commerce. It builds on x402. Every standard at this step is listed at https://agenticweb.wiki/category/pay/.