OpenAgent ID is easiest to understand as six questions.

Who is the agent?

The answer is a DID. OpenAgent uses did:oas:<namespace>:<kind>:<identifier> for native identities and also accepts bootstrap identities such as did:key and wallet-linked identities such as did:pkh where supported.
did:oas:l1fe:agent:weather-bot
The DID is public. The private key is not.

Who is accountable?

The answer is lineage. Privileged agents must prove an authority path to a human or multi-human root. OAS owns the lineage verifier contract. Downstream systems consume that result rather than inventing their own lineage rules. Portable checks can happen offline. Privileged checks must resolve finalized Sigil GAL lineage state.

What may the agent do?

The answer is an Arsenal Capability Token, or ACT. ACTs are short-lived, signed, scoped tokens bound to a DID.
openai:chat:invoke
github:repo:read
!github:pulls:merge
Scopes can narrow delegation. They cannot amplify it.

Is this request allowed right now?

The answer is AEGIS policy. AEGIS checks signature validity, lineage status, revocation, liveness, trust tier, route policy, spending rules, rate limits, time windows, approvals, and warnings.
TierMeaning
AnonymousValid key possession
IdentifiedRegistered identity exists
SovereignFull active lineage to HMR or MHR root

Where do credentials live?

The answer is the Arsenal broker. Provider keys stay in the broker. The agent receives a fetch-shaped credential handle, not the raw key. If the agent process is compromised, the provider key does not leak. The attacker can only abuse active scopes until revocation or expiry.

Which skills can run?

The answer is skills governance. OpenAgent reads the skill surface from SKILLS.md and enforces policy for allow, deny, rate limit, argument validation, time windows, consent, and audit level.
skills:
  deploy-production:
    allow: true
    require_consent: true
    audit_level: full
default:
  allow: false

How do implementations prove compatibility?

The answer is conformance. Implementations run JSON vectors for challenge issuance, JCS canonicalization, signature verification, nonce lifecycle, trust tiers, sessions, errors, headers, and raw SDK-free interop.

OAS

DID, entity, and lineage details.

Arsenal

Capability and credential broker details.

AEGIS

Verification and policy details.

Conformance

Compatibility expectations.