# GATE — Authority Verification Network

**Stage 17 Developer Preview · Live public adoption**

> Does a live delegation path from this principal to this actor still exist **right now**?

**GATE is the live authority-state resolver for delegated agents across trust domains.**

It resolves whether a currently valid authority path still exists at effect time using live authority state from external trust domains. GATE does **not** mint a proprietary delegation token, replace OAuth, replace your policy engine, or require MCP.


## GATE Stage 17 — current Developer Preview

> **Current operational boundary:** one Canadian primary database, **no production regional replicas**, and no independent third-party issuer propagation SLA. `maxStalenessMs` measures primary snapshot age only. The Developer Preview is **not enterprise GA**.

- [GATE public product website](https://gate-phi-eosin.vercel.app/) — launch, Free plans, and supported developer paths.
- [Signed revocation quickstart](docs/LAUNCH-FIRST-REAL-EFFECT.md) — actual GATE Network DENY → ALLOW → DENY with a self-controlled ES256 test issuer.
- [Start with the hosted sandbox](https://gate-phi-eosin.vercel.app/quickstart.html) — synthetic graph for learning GATE revocation semantics.
- [Create a real Free GATE Network project](docs/QUICKSTART.md) — live gate-network with a real API key and managed quota.
- [Connect your own ES256 authority source](docs/LIVE-ISSUER-QUICKSTART.md).
- [Stage 16 frozen public baseline release](https://github.com/Projetxana/gate-authority-network/releases/tag/stage16).
- [Stage 17E Free → paid continuity and billing hardening](docs/STAGE17E-FREE-PAID-CONTINUITY.md).
- [Stage 17D external problem validation](docs/STAGE17D-EXTERNAL-VALIDATION.md).
- [Production / preview runtime boundary](docs/PRODUCTION-MANIFEST-V1.md).
- [Current API, topology and limitations](docs/GATE-V7-LIVE-STATUS.md).

Stage 17 has validated real Free onboarding, independent CAEP/SSF revocation
interoperability, external problem validation, and Free-to-paid entitlement
continuity. GATE remains a Developer Preview: independent adoption and
enterprise-scale operation are the next validation targets.

## Where GATE fits

```text
Identity / credentials / policy / issuer systems
                      |
                      | authority state + trust signals
                      v
             +-------------------+
             |       GATE        |
             | live authority    |
             | state resolver    |
             +-------------------+
                      |
                 gate.verify()
                      |
                      v
             trusted effect boundary
```

GATE complements identity, credential, policy and gateway systems. **MCP is one integration surface, not GATE's definition.**

The differentiator is not multi-hop alone. It is the combination of live upstream revocation, alternate-path preservation, federated issuer state, freshness semantics and protocol-neutral effect-time resolution.

Read: `docs/POSITIONING.md`, `docs/INTEGRATION-MODEL.md`, `docs/RELEASE-BOUNDARY.md`.

## Public Developer Quickstart

GATE exposes two separate onboarding paths.

### Sandbox

Use the hosted sandbox to learn GATE semantics on a synthetic authority graph:

https://gate-phi-eosin.vercel.app/quickstart.html

Temporary key: 7 days. Quota: 500 verifications/project/day.

### Live Free Network

Canonical endpoint:

https://ufqtoyakmrddqytrkcje.supabase.co/functions/v1/gate-network

Current Free Developer Preview: 50,000 verifications/month, 1 authority issuer, bounded consistency. Strict consistency is not included.

Use GateClient from @gate-avn/sdk. See docs/QUICKSTART.md for the complete live-network flow.

## 5-minute demo

Requirements: Node.js 20+.

```bash
npm install
npm test
npm run demo
```

The demo calls the public SDK shape:

```js
import { GateClient } from './packages/sdk/dist/index.js';

const gate = new GateClient({ endpoint: process.env.GATE_URL });

const result = await gate.verify({
  principal: 'user:jerome',
  actor: 'agent:C@company-c',
  action: {
    protocol: 'mcp',
    name: 'delete_customer_data',
    resource: 'customer:3456'
  },
  consistency: 'bounded',
  maxStalenessMs: 200
});

if (result.decision !== 'ALLOW') throw new Error(result.reason);
```

## What GATE verifies

GATE answers a deliberately narrow question: whether the actor still has at least one live delegation path from the principal, according to sufficiently fresh external authority state.

The public contract separates **authority state** from application policy. A credential can remain syntactically valid while GATE returns `INVALID` or `UNKNOWN` because the authority behind it is no longer live or cannot be established with the requested freshness.

It can return:

- `VALID / ALLOW` — at least one live authority path exists.
- `INVALID / DENY` — the known paths are revoked/invalid.
- `UNKNOWN / DENY` — freshness or availability is insufficient for the requested consistency contract.

## What GATE does not do

GATE is **not** your business-policy PDP. The action object is carried for integration/audit context in this preview; policy such as "may this principal delete customer 3456?" belongs in AuthZEN, Cedar, OPA, Permit, Cerbos, OpenFGA, or your existing authorization system.

GATE is also not trying to replace OAuth, MCP, A2A, OpenID Federation, Security Event Tokens, Shared Signals, an IdP, or an API/AI gateway. The intended role is to sit underneath/alongside them as a live authority-state resolver.

The Developer Preview does **not** claim a portable cryptographically signed authority proof. It returns a live resolution result; a signed GATE receipt is a possible future layer, not a current release promise.

## Why a network service?

A local verifier can validate signatures, expiry, scopes and token chains. It cannot independently know every external issuer's current revocation state, trust changes, alternate delegation paths, or freshness across domains. GATE's hypothesis is that the defensible value is the shared, low-latency state network — not a secret verification algorithm.

## Consistency contracts

- `bounded`: live verification from the canonical primary on v7, with a bounded primary-read snapshot age; **regional replicas are not yet deployed**.
- `strict`: canonical primary-read verification available only to eligible plans; **not** synchronous confirmation of external issuer systems.

## Repository map

```text
packages/sdk/      public developer-facing client
examples/          minimal SDK demonstration
services/          experimental control plane / edge / trust services
src/               PoC verification primitives
mcp/               MCP enforcement harness
test/              SDK + distributed consistency tests
docs/              architecture, integration contract, due diligence
```

## Install

### SDK

```bash
npm install @gate-avn/sdk@dev
```

Repository Stage 16 baseline: `0.1.0-dev.4`

Published npm `@dev`: `0.1.0-dev.4` (verified from public npm registry on 2026-10-28)

### MCP server

```bash
npm install @gate-avn/mcp@dev
```

Repository Stage 16 baseline: `0.1.0-dev.8`

Published npm `@dev`: `0.1.0-dev.8` (verified from public npm registry on 2026-10-28)

Official MCP Registry:

```text
io.github.Projetxana/gate-authority-network
```

## Status

GATE is publicly available as a Developer Preview on npm and in the Official MCP Registry.

The SDK and MCP server are currently installable from the public npm registry. The MCP server is also discoverable through the Official MCP Registry.

The HTTP, x402, AuthZEN, A2A, AP2 and SSF adapters exist in the Stage 16 repository baseline but are not yet published as public npm packages.

This remains experimental Developer Preview software and is not production-ready.

Read next: `docs/STAGE17D-EXTERNAL-VALIDATION.md`, `docs/STAGE17E-FREE-PAID-CONTINUITY.md`, `docs/DUE-DILIGENCE-2026-10-02.md` and `docs/PUBLIC-VALIDATION-PLAN.md`.

## License

Apache-2.0. This repository is intended to make the verification logic easy to inspect and challenge; the long-term product hypothesis is the shared live authority network, not proprietary verifier code.