Action proposed
The agent proposes an action with its target, parameters, scope and asserted intent.
WitnessOS by Empire Labs Pty Ltd
Every agent action, provable.
WitnessOS is not an operating system for machines. It is the operating layer for governed agent action, the kernel between "the agent wants to" and "the agent may".
Deterministic policy, human approval, tamper-evident receipts and independent timestamps. Auditor-verifiable with zero trust in us.
WITNESSOS / EVIDENCE RECEIPT
E4 SEALED
action
governed.action
policy result
ALLOW
approval
BOUND
chain
INTACT
timestamp
RFC 3161
ACTION HASH
7f2a91c4...e86b03d9
INDEPENDENTLY TIMESTAMPED
REVOCATION CHECKED AT RECORD TIME
7f2a91c4...e86b03d9
INDEPENDENTLY TIMESTAMPED
REVOCATION CHECKED AT RECORD TIME
FAIL CLOSED
VERIFY WITHOUT EMPIRE TRUST
Why now
Dashboards are not audit trails.
AI governance is moving from guidance to evidence. Audit, risk and insurance teams will ask organisations to prove what autonomous systems actually did, not simply show what a platform says happened.
"Show me, don't tell me."
When an agent spends money, sends a message or touches a governed action, who can prove what happened, who approved it and when? Self-attested logs that a vendor could edit are not enough.
How it works
Govern first. Act second. Prove always.
Policy evaluated
Deterministic, OPA/Rego-compatible policy returns Allow, Deny, Conditional or Escalate.
Receipt created
The evaluation produces a tamper-evident receipt with the action hash, policy version, context, decision, timestamp and chain of custody.
Governed response
Execution proceeds only when sanctioned. Denied actions receive structured remediation from advisory to failsafe, with every escalation recorded.
Evidence ladder / E0 to E4
Evidence gets stronger. Never overstated.
The public ladder closes at E4. Every grade describes the evidence a receipt can support, and unprovable gates cap the grade down, never up.
E0
Event recorded
The event exists as a declared record.
E1
Record chained
The event is linked into the evidence sequence.
E2
Record signed
Cryptographic integrity is attached to the evidence.
E3
Chain verified
The chain is intact and self-consistent.
E4
Independently timestamped
An RFC 3161 Time Stamping Authority sealed the moment the record was finalised, with revocation checked at that time.
Fail closed by default
If a proof gate cannot be satisfied, the grade is capped down.
Governed allowlist
Only sanctioned action types can reach E4. Everything else stops at E3.
Zero trust in Empire Labs
Receipts verify independently, with no access to an Empire Labs database.
Tamper-tested
Altered records cannot reach the top grade.
Watchdog coverage
If the evidence gate degrades, operators are alerted. There is no silent drift.
Capabilities
Controls for accountable autonomy.
POLICY
Policy engine
OPA-native Rego policy-as-code, evaluated deterministically before action.
EVIDENCE
Evidence receipts
SHA-256 signed, tamper-evident and exportable as audit bundles.
REMEDIATION
RemediLevel R0 to R6
Structured escalation from advisory guidance to hard failsafe.
BINDING
Machine binding
TPM or fingerprint binding for governed licensing.
INTEGRATION
API-first
Designed for REST, WebSocket and SDK integration.
CONTROL
Layered policy
System, environment and action-level policy tiers.
Governed connectors in production.
Payments, refunds and messaging are governed action types: policy, approval and evidence apply before any connector runs. Enterprise deployments add their own action types and connectors to the governed allowlist, and the same evidence ladder applies to everything they touch.
x402 payments
Stripe refunds
Gmail/Workspace messaging
Proof and positioning
Shipped evidence, not a promise.
Strict mode issues evidence anchored by a real third-party RFC 3161 authority.
Altered records cannot reach E4.
Unsanctioned action types fail closed.
Evidence degradation cannot drift silently.
Including real-CA timestamp verification.
Open standards vocabulary. WitnessOS is built on the Empire Stack vocabulary: ACI, the Agent Communication Interface with AJSON manifest authoring, and AIP, the Agent Interaction Protocol. Empire Labs Pty Ltd participates in Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) working groups on observability, traceability and agentic commerce, where WitnessOS evidence concepts and reference implementations are shared openly.
Questions people ask
Agent governance, transactions and evidence
What is WitnessOS?
WitnessOS is the runtime governance layer for autonomous agents, developed by Empire Labs Pty Ltd. It sits between an agent wanting to act and the agent being allowed to act, applying deterministic policy, human approval and tamper-evident evidence to every governed action.
What is an agent transaction?
An agent transaction is any governed action an autonomous agent performs, such as a payment, refund or message. WitnessOS records each one as a signed, chained evidence receipt with an independent timestamp, so the transaction can be verified later without trusting the operator.
How does WitnessOS handle AI commerce and payments?
WitnessOS governs payment and commerce actions through connectors, including x402 payments, Stripe refunds and messaging. Evidence receipts are produced before a connector runs, giving AI commerce the audit trail it needs: what was spent, who approved it, and proof the record was not altered.
What does E4 evidence mean?
E4 is the top grade on the public WitnessOS evidence ladder. It means the receipt was independently timestamped by an RFC 3161 Time Stamping Authority with revocation checked at record time, and it re-verifies offline with zero trust in Empire Labs.
Is WitnessOS an agent operating system?
No. WitnessOS is not an operating system for machines. It is the operating layer for governed agent action, the kernel between "the agent wants to" and "the agent may". It governs, approves and proves actions rather than running the agent itself.
How does WitnessOS relate to the Agentic AI Foundation?
Empire Labs Pty Ltd is a participant in Agentic AI Foundation working groups on observability, traceability and agentic commerce. WitnessOS evidence concepts and reference implementations are shared in those groups as open contributions. AAIF membership is held by the foundation's member organisations; Empire Labs is not an AAIF member org.
Technical assessment
Can you prove what your agents did?
Book a 30-minute technical assessment to map governed actions, policy gates and evidence requirements for your environment.