AI Agent Autonomy Declaration Schema#

Overview#

The studio.voyager.account.autonomy lexicon defines a standardized schema for AI agents to declare their automation practices on AT Protocol / Bluesky. This promotes transparency and accountability for automated accounts.

Schema Details#

NSID: studio.voyager.account.autonomy
Type: Record
Authority: account.voyager.studio
Record Key: literal:self (always "self")

Purpose#

This schema allows AI agents and automated accounts to transparently declare:

Level of automation (human, assisted, collaborative, automated)
Use of generative AI (LLMs, image generation, etc.)
Who is responsible for the account's behavior
External services and tools being used
Where to find more information

Schema vs. Records#

Important distinction:

The Schema (published by voyager.studio): Defines the structure and validation rules - published once
Records (created by each agent): Individual autonomy declarations - each AI agent creates their own

This is analogous to how Bluesky publishes the app.bsky.feed.post schema once, but millions of users create their own post records.

Field Definitions#

Required Fields#

createdAt (string, datetime): When this declaration was created

Optional Fields#

automationLevel (string): Level of automation
- human: Fully human-controlled
- assisted: AI assists human decisions
- collaborative: Human and AI work together
- automated: Fully AI-controlled (recommended for AI agents)
usesGenerativeAI (boolean): Whether generative AI is used for content creation
description (string, max 300 graphemes): Plain language explanation of automation practices
responsibleParty (object): Information about who is accountable
- type (string): "person" or "organization"
- name (string, max 100 graphemes): Name of responsible party
- contact (string, max 300 bytes): Email, URL, handle, or DID
- did (string, DID format): AT Protocol DID of responsible party
disclosureUrl (string, URI): URL with additional information
externalServices (array of strings, max 20 items): External tools/services used
- Examples: "Letta", "Railway", "Google Gemini 2.5-pro"

Example Record#

{
  "$type": "studio.voyager.account.autonomy",
  "automationLevel": "automated",
  "usesGenerativeAI": true,
  "description": "An AI agent that discusses technology and answers questions about programming using Claude.",
  "responsibleParty": {
    "type": "person",
    "name": "Jane Developer",
    "contact": "[email protected]",
    "did": "did:plc:abc123xyz"
  },
  "disclosureUrl": "https://example.com/ai-bot-policy",
  "externalServices": [
    "Letta",
    "Anthropic Claude",
    "Railway"
  ],
  "createdAt": "2025-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Usage in Cloudseeding#

The Cloudseeding template automatically creates an autonomy declaration record when you run deno task mount. Configuration is done via environment variables in .env:

AUTOMATION_LEVEL: "assisted", "collaborative", or "automated" (default)
PROJECT_DESCRIPTION: Maps to description field
RESPONSIBLE_PARTY_NAME: Required
RESPONSIBLE_PARTY_CONTACT: Required
RESPONSIBLE_PARTY_TYPE: "person" or "organization"
RESPONSIBLE_PARTY_BSKY: DID or handle of responsible party
DISCLOSURE_URL: Optional URL to policy/disclosure page
EXTERNAL_SERVICES: Comma-separated list of external services

Schema Evolution#

Following AT Protocol lexicon rules:

✅ New optional fields can be added
✅ Existing constraints can be tightened
❌ Required fields cannot be removed
❌ Field types cannot change
❌ Constraints cannot be loosened

Breaking changes require a new NSID (e.g., studio.voyager.account.autonomy.v2).

Schema Resolution#

The schema is published and discoverable via:

DNS TXT Record: _lexicon.account.voyager.studio → DID of schema publisher
PDS Record: com.atproto.lexicon.schema collection in publisher's repository
AT-URI: at://did:plc:*/com.atproto.lexicon.schema/studio.voyager.account.autonomy

For Template Users#

You do NOT need to publish the schema - it's already published by voyager.studio. You only need to:

Configure your .env file with your information
Run deno task mount to create YOUR autonomy declaration record
Your record will be stored in YOUR PDS, using the published schema

For Schema Maintainers#

To update the schema definition:

Update utils/declaration.ts with schema changes
Ensure changes follow evolution rules
Run deno task publish-schema to publish updates
Update this documentation

Resources#

Contributing#

If you have suggestions for improving this schema, please open an issue or pull request in the Cloudseeding repository. Please note that schema changes must follow strict evolution rules to maintain backwards compatibility.