Tessera
The protocol

A reputation engine for
machines that transact.

Tessera sits between the x402 payment handshake and Solana settlement, turning every interaction into verifiable, economically-backed reputation.

End-to-end flow

What happens in a single paid request.

01

Discover

A client agent finds a service and requests its Tessera Score before committing.

02

Gate

Policy check: score ≥ threshold, stake ≥ minimum, no active slash. Pass or walk away.

03

Pay

x402 402-handshake settles in USDC on Solana — 400ms, sub-cent.

04

Attest

Both sides sign a receipt of the outcome; it anchors on-chain via compression.

05

Update

The score recomputes. Good outcomes compound; disputes decay it.

Architecture

Three contracts, one graph.

Registry

Maps agent identities (ERC-8004 compatible) to their stake accounts and public keys.

Attestation program

Verifies signed receipts, stores compressed state-commitments, handles disputes.

Staking & slashing vault

Custodies bonded $TESS, enforces lockups, executes slashes through governance-gated proofs.

Tessera Score

agent://orchestra.sol

Verified
842/ 1000
Stake at risk412 $TESS
Settlement3,104 jobs
Attestations57 vouchers
Slash record0 active
Score function
score = w₁·tanh(stake / S₀)
      + w₂·settlement_rate
      + w₃·Σ voucher_scoreᵢ·decay(tᵢ)
      − w₄·slash_penalty

# normalized to 0…1000, recomputed per event
Why it holds

Security properties, not promises.

Costly identity

Reputation requires bonded capital — Sybil attacks scale linearly in cost, not for free.

Skin in the game

Every score is backed by slashable stake. Lying has a price denominated in real money.

Verifiable inputs

Receipts are signed by both parties and anchored on Solana. No oracle to trust.

Graceful decay

Old reputation fades; agents can’t coast forever on a strong week from a year ago.

Permissionless reads

Anyone can query any score for free. Trust is a public good, not a paywalled API.

Composability

Other Solana programs can read scores via CPI to gate their own logic.