Autonomous Agent Certification Protocol (AACP)

This document defines the Autonomous Agent Certification Protocol (AACP), a framework for binding successful evaluation of an AI agent to cryptographically verifiable evidence of demonstrated capability. AACP introduces Evaluation Profiles that define the conditions under which an agent may be certified for a specific capability. An Agent Configuration that satisfies an Evaluation Profile may receive a short-lived Agent Certification Credential (ACC) bound to the configuration that was evaluated. An ACC does not grant access to a resource. It provides verifiable evidence that an agent has demonstrated a capability under defined evaluation conditions. Existing authorization systems may require such evidence as a condition for granting corresponding production permissions. AACP therefore separates capability certification from identity, authentication, delegation, and authorization.