Every agent must prove its identity before its messages are accepted. Cryptographic credentials, not asserted role strings.

Messages are cryptographically signed by the sender. Recipients verify the signature before processing — detecting any tampering in transit.

All inter-agent communication travels over mutually authenticated TLS. Eliminates passive eavesdropping and transport-level tampering.

Every incoming inter-agent message is validated against a strict schema before the agent acts on it — rejecting malformed or out-of-scope instructions.

Every message carries a unique nonce and a short-lived timestamp. Receiving agents track seen nonces and reject expired or duplicate messages.

Agents only receive message types they are authorized to act on. Queue and channel access is scoped to specific sender/receiver pairs.

A central registry maps agent identities to their cryptographic credentials and authorized message types — the equivalent of a certificate authority for agents.

All inter-agent messages — sent, received, and rejected — are logged with sender identity, content hash, and timestamp for post-incident investigation.

Behavioral baselines for message volume, source, type, and timing — alerting on deviations that indicate forgery, injection, or compromise.