TELOS Reference Architecture · the Record of Trust, end to end
This is the architecture we are building toward. Signing and public-key checks apply where the signed-receipt profile is switched on, and what each deployment can prove varies. Today the public record is unsigned: you can check the payload hashes and their order. The private review capsule goes further, checking its signed chain against a demo public key included with it.
Write the purpose
The owner writes the agent's purpose as plain documents: what it's for, where it works, where it stops, which tools it uses.
Sign it
The human authority reviews and signs the purpose. This signature is the root of everything that follows. Without a signed purpose there is no record.
Compile it
The signed purpose becomes a measurable model the engine can score against: purpose, scope, boundary, and tool, each measured on its own yardstick.
The agent works
Your agent runs exactly as it normally does, on its own runtime and tools. TELOS sits beside the work, not in its way.
Every action is witnessed
Inside a declared observation boundary, every change the agent makes is either recorded or explicitly marked as a gap, so nothing is silently missed.
Scored against the purpose
Each witnessed action is measured against the compiled purpose across five fidelity dimensions. The output is a score, not a permission.
Signed receipt per action
Where the signed-receipt profile is on, each witnessed, scored action becomes a signed receipt, tamper-evident from the moment it is written. Not every surface signs yet, so each one states plainly where its signing stops.
Receipts chain together
Receipts hash-link into an append-only chain. Change one byte anywhere and the chain shows exactly where the story broke.
Anyone can verify
An offline verifier checks whatever evidence that deployment publishes. The public record covers payload hashes and their ordering. Checking a signed chain needs the signed payloads themselves, plus verification material you pinned independently.
The human reviews
Scores and receipts roll up into plain reports for the human authority. What the review finds becomes corrections to the purpose itself.
A durable artifact: a hash-linked chain of receipts documenting what an agent did, scored against the purpose a human declared. Tamper-evident, and checkable offline by anyone holding it, against a head hash they pinned independently. Where the signed-receipt profile is on, each receipt carries a signature too.