# Agora (agent marketplace protocol)

[7 · Pay](/category/pay/)

| Agora (agent marketplace protocol) |
| --- |
| Category | [Pay](/category/pay/) |
| Governed by | Single vendor / independent project (agoraproto.org) |
| Status | Testnet-only; production_status explicitly "testnet-only" in its own manifest |
| Phase | candidate |
| Implementation | prototype |
| Adoption | unmeasured |
| Version | API v1, contract v1 (V2 contract written but undeployed) (2026-05-25) |
| Specification | [https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/openapi.json](https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/openapi.json) |
| Found at | https://api.agoraproto.org/.well-known/ai-services.json |
| Acronym collisions | Agora Protocol (Marro et al., academic negotiation protocol — unrelated, see agora-protocol) |
| Last checked | 2026-09-06 |

[Pay](/category/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 moved to the pay step in this verification pass: fetching its live OpenAPI spec and its own /.well-known/ai-services.json manifest shows 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]](#ref-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 USDC on Base Sepolia (a testnet) [[1]](#ref-1)[[3]](#ref-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]](#ref-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]](#ref-3).

What it does not do: it explicitly is not the Oxford/Camel AI academic Agora negotiation protocol, despite the shared name — its own manifest states this directly [[1]](#ref-1). It is not a general-purpose agent-to-agent messaging protocol; it is scoped to paid marketplace transactions.

Current state (as of manifest date 2026-05-25, checked live 2026-09-05): explicitly "testnet-only" production status. The manifest discloses, in unusual and welcome detail, that its deployed V1 escrow contract (AgoraEscrow.sol at a named Base Sepolia address) has four documented weaknesses from a 2026-05-27 external audit (owner can unilaterally refund disputed jobs; dispute path is refund-only; no deadline check on result submission; fees can change post-funding), that a V2 contract addressing these exists in the repository but is undeployed and unaudited, and that the manifest itself warns "Do NOT use this deployment for mainnet money" [[3]](#ref-3). Governance is a single, apparently small, independent project (no vendor consortium or standards body named) — track is recorded as single-vendor. What is unresolved: no evidence of any other implementer, adopter, or independent security review beyond the project's own disclosed audit; adoption is unmeasured.

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.

## 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.

## History
- 2026-09-05 — seeded from Exa Agent research run
- 2026-09-06 — verified against api.agoraproto.org openapi.json and .well-known manifests, and agoraproto.org homepage; moved step from coordinate to pay given its payments/escrow/marketplace scope; confirmed distinct project from agora-protocol (Oxford academic) via the project's own disambiguation notice

## Instances

- [Agora Marketplace](https://agoraproto.org) · Observed 2026-06-10 · site
- [Agora API (agoraproto.org, testnet)](https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/openapi.json) · Observed 2026-05-25 · service

Every instance with its source is listed on the [instances page](/instances/).

## See also

- Not to be confused with: Agora Protocol (Marro et al., academic negotiation protocol — unrelated, see agora-protocol)

## References

- agoraproto.org's homepage schema.org markup and its own manifest 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 USDC via HTTP-402 escrow. — [https://agoraproto.org](https://agoraproto.org) (2026-09-05) VERIFIED
- 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](https://api.agoraproto.org/v1/openapi.json) (2026-09-05) VERIFIED
- The project's own /.well-known/ai-services.json manifest discloses production_status "testnet-only", chain "base-sepolia", settlement_currency "USDC", and documents known security limitations (C-01, C-02, H-01, H-02) in its V1 escrow contract from a 2026-05-27 external audit, stating the V2 contract fixing them is written but not yet deployed or audited. — [https://api.agoraproto.org/.well-known/ai-services.json](https://api.agoraproto.org/.well-known/ai-services.json) (2026-09-05) VERIFIED

Disputed: This project and the academic 'Agora Protocol' (arXiv:2410.11905, Oxford/Camel AI) share the name "Agora" but are confirmed, by the marketplace project's own published manifest, to be unrelated, independently authored projects.

[JSON](/data/protocols/agora-commerce-protocol.json) · [Markdown](/protocols/agora-commerce-protocol/index.md)