How checks work

Rank and directory order

A Top #1 label is a display position, not on-chain Agent ID #1. The actual ID always opens /agents/[id]. Best evidence first orders 5/5 qualifiers first; then more PASS results, fewer MISMATCH/FAIL results, more checks with known outcomes, and more recent recorded observations. Name and on-chain ID break ties only. This is evidence completeness, not safety or performance. The separate Known identity score sort compares only complete numeric identity totals. Exact decimal search always refers to the on-chain ID.

0 of 101 indexed agents currently meet the strict five-check rule. There is no padded Top 50. A position never gives an agent a score.

Strict five-check qualification

An agent enters Top checked agents only if all five checks below are PASS, each with a recorded source and observation time: registry ownership, parsed metadata, exact self-reference, recorded wallet matching the file declaration, and read-only discovery of an eligible declared endpoint. Any UNKNOWN, MISMATCH/FAIL, or NOT APPLICABLE prevents qualification. Retained stale metadata and refresh errors also prevent qualification. A discovery pass means only that the defined A2A card response identified this token at that time; it is not a task test or proof of data accuracy. Registry and endpoint states can change after their observation times.

Five evidence checks

Every profile labels each check PASS, MISMATCH/FAIL, UNKNOWN, or NOT APPLICABLE, with its source, reason, and observation time when recorded. Unknown means evidence is missing or a request could not establish a result; not applicable means the needed wallet or eligible advertised endpoint was not declared. Neither is a failed agent.

1. 1. On-chain registry ownership

   Base Identity Registry ownerOf returns the owner for this ID.

2. 2. Registration metadata retrieved and parsed

   A bounded inline or operator-ingested registration file is available as parsed JSON. A malformed file fails parsing, but does not undo on-chain ownership.

3. 3. Registration self-reference

   The file's registrations array names this exact ID and the configured Base registry. A different valid reference is a mismatch.

4. 4. Recorded wallet consistency

   A nonzero on-chain wallet and one file agentWallet declaration can be compared. No recorded wallet is not applicable; an absent declaration with a recorded wallet is unknown.

5. 5. Read-only service discovery

   Only an eligible advertised A2A card URL receives a bounded operator-run read-only discovery check. A matching card identifies the token in that response; it does not prove task completion or data accuracy.

Discovery and freshness

An operator imports candidate IDs from the documented 8004scan index and confirms every saved ID with Base Identity Registry ownerOf. The current snapshot contains 101 confirmed records. The latest import ran at 2026-09-23T16:21:47.005Z UTC around Base block 51695579; individual records retain their own observation times. It is a sample, not the full registry. Direct ID lookup reads the registry again, with a bounded 30-second server cache.

The operator can refresh the snapshot with npm run directory:refresh or expand it with npm run directory:expand. Search by name, owner wallet, registered wallet, or declared website covers the snapshot only. Exact decimal IDs can be looked up across the entire registry.

Metadata availability and freshness

The operator reads each on-chain tokenURI and parses bounded JSON. In this 101-record snapshot, 88 registration files are parsed, 13 are unavailable, and 0 are malformed. Each card and profile shows the metadata state; a parsed name or service is still an agent declaration. The saved metadata observation time belongs to that record, not to the latest directory import.

Inline JSON is limited to 64 KiB. External HTTPS and IPFS files are retrieved only by the operator script from reviewed hosts through a DNS-pinned, public-IP-only connection, without redirects and with size and time limits. A failed refresh retains earlier successful metadata and its original timestamp, labels it stale, and withholds current reference passes. A changed tokenURI invalidates saved metadata. Public page requests do not fetch external files.

Categories cite the matching capability, service name, description, or name on each profile. These are claims about intended use; Unknown / not established remains visible. A financial-data claim does not imply token-price data. A price-data label requires explicit price wording.

Legacy identity metric · version 1

Registry ownerOf confirms the ID

40 points

Registration file names this exact ID and Base registry

30 points

Declared wallet matches a nonzero on-chain agent wallet

30 points

A demonstrated mismatch earns zero for that check. Missing, unsupported, or temporarily unavailable evidence remains unknown. The total is shown only when all three outcomes are known; there is no renormalization. With these three checks, known totals can only be 40, 70, or 100; a 99/100 result is unsupported. All three checks must pass for 100/100. Even 100/100 establishes identity consistency only and does not prove task quality, safety, accuracy, or usefulness.

Service discovery

The operator checks only the exact reviewed A2A card URL template declared by an agent. A bounded read-only GET must return JSON with a card, name, skills array, and the requested agent token ID. 37 current card URLs have recorded checks, most recently saved 2026-09-23T16:30:03.308Z UTC. Each checked profile shows its exact URL, timestamp, assertions, and result. Other advertised endpoints remain untested.

A matching card establishes that this discovery response identified the requested token ID at the observation time. It does not show that an agent completed a task, that a skill works, or that price data is accurate. Authentication, payment requirements, request failures, and untested declarations remain distinct. Service observations never change the identity consistency score; Agent Crest has no combined usefulness rating.

Limits and source links

Registry owner and wallet values can change after the snapshot. Profile pages re-read current on-chain values. Operator-ingested metadata is reused only while its URI hash matches the current registry URI. RPC failures and malformed metadata are shown as unknown or unavailable, never as a failed identity check.