Agent Identity in the Autonomous Economy
Agent Name Service
How human-readable agent names map to Signet IDs. The DNS of the agent economy and why namespace management matters.
Overview
The Signet ID format (SID-0x followed by a hash) is designed for machines: precise, unique, and verifiable. But humans need readable names. The Agent Name Service bridges this gap, mapping human-friendly names to machine-readable SIDs.
The concept parallels DNS (Domain Name System) in web infrastructure. Just as DNS maps "google.com" to an IP address, the Agent Name Service maps "acme-support-agent" to SID-0x7a3f...e91d. This makes agents discoverable and referenceable in human contexts while maintaining the precision of cryptographic identifiers in machine contexts.
Namespace management is critical as the agent ecosystem grows. Without coordination, two different operators might both name their agents "customer-support." The Agent Name Service prevents this through operator-scoped namespaces. An agent's full name includes its operator scope: "acme/customer-support" is distinct from "beta-corp/customer-support."
The naming system also supports agent discovery. Operators can register their agents with descriptive names and capability tags, making them findable through search. A platform looking for "a payment processing agent with a Signet Score above 700" can search the registry and find matching agents by name, capability, and trust level.
Name portability is another benefit. When an agent migrates between platforms, its name follows it because the name-to-SID mapping is maintained in Signet's registry, not in any individual platform's database. This prevents platforms from holding agent names hostage and enables true agent mobility across the ecosystem.
Looking forward, the Agent Name Service will support hierarchical naming (sub-agents under parent agents), versioned names (tracking name-to-SID mappings over time), and cross-registry federation (interoperating with other agent identity systems). The goal is to create a naming infrastructure as robust and decentralized as DNS itself.