Architecture

How the pieces fit. The system is intentionally split across four boundaries: identity, payment, attestation, and mirror.

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The actors

┌───────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────────┐
│  User Wallet      │     │  Researcher AA       │     │  Summarizer AA       │
│  (EOA)            │     │  (EIP-4337 smart     │     │  (EIP-4337 smart     │
│                   │     │   account)           │     │   account)           │
│  Signs once,      │────▶│  0x4da7f4cF…1776     │────▶│  0xA6C36bA2…ef5c     │
│  delegates a      │ EIP │  Pays authors,       │ 5%  │  Receives sub-agent  │
│  budget envelope. │ 712 │  attests on chain.   │ atm │  fee per query.      │
└───────────────────┘     └──────────────────────┘     └──────────────────────┘
                                     │
                                     ▼
                          ┌──────────────────────┐
                          │  AttributionLedger   │
                          │  (smart contract)    │
                          │                      │
                          │  80% authors         │
                          │  15% operator        │
                          │  5% ecosystem        │
                          └──────────────────────┘

The agent identities are AAs deliberately — judges can audit each tx on KiteScan without grepping a key custodian's database.

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Money flow

flowchart TB
    User[User Wallet]
    Passport[Session Delegation<br/>EIP-712]
    Vault[Kite Passport vault<br/>10 USDC/day · 2 USDC/tx]
    Researcher[Researcher AA]
    Summarizer[Summarizer AA<br/>+ 5% sub-agent fee]
    Ledger[AttributionLedger]
    Escrow[UnclaimedYieldEscrow<br/>5% simulated APY]
    Mirror[CitationMirror<br/>on Avalanche Fuji]
    Authors[Cited Authors]
    Operator[Operator EOA]
    Eco[Kite Ecosystem]

    User -- signs once --> Passport
    Vault -. caps spending .-> Researcher
    Passport -. gates .-> Researcher
    Researcher -- 5% atomic --> Summarizer
    Researcher -- totalPaid --> Ledger
    Ledger -- 80% split --> Authors
    Ledger -- 15% --> Operator
    Ledger -- 5% --> Eco
    Authors -. unclaimed share .-> Escrow
    Ledger -. event mirror .-> Mirror

For each query:

1. User signs a SpendingIntent (EIP-712) capping spend per query + per day. Server keeps the floor; client value can only ratchet up.
2. Researcher AA discovers real papers (OpenAlex / Semantic Scholar), then settles corpus access through a genuine x402 handshake — an HTTP 402 challenge paid with an on-chain USDC transfer on Kite, verified on-chain (facilitator-free, via /api/x402).
3. Reads the papers with an OpenRouter LLM and ranks per-paper citation weights.
4. Researcher calls attestAndSplit(queryId, totalPaid, citations[]). Contract pays authors (80% split per weights), operator (15%), ecosystem (5%). Authors whose ORCID isn't yet bound have their cut deposited to UnclaimedYieldEscrow instead — accruing yield at 5% APY until they claim via ORCID OAuth.
5. Off-chain relayer mirrors the QueryAttested event to CitationMirror on Avalanche Fuji. Cross-chain proof for Avalanche-native indexers.

The whole flow is atomic at the EVM level. Either everything settles or the agent refunds (CLAUDE.md: "Fail closed: if attestation tx fails, DO NOT send summary to user").

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Identity binding

Citation revenue routes to wallet but is logically owned by an ORCID. Binding ORCID → wallet is the most security-sensitive flow:

1. Author visits /dashboard/claim, types their ORCID.
2. ORCID OAuth round-trip proves they own the ORCID (real path). Optional Skip OAuth (demo) path is restricted to test ORCIDs only — see Security model.
3. Author signs an EIP-191 message binding ORCID → wallet with chainId: 2368 and validUntil: <unix> (10-min window).
4. Server verifies signature + checks no existing on-chain binding conflicts (409 if one does).
5. Operator AA relays the binding to NameRegistry.bind() on-chain.
6. From the next query onwards, flattenCitationsForContract resolves the ORCID hash to the bound wallet via NameRegistry.walletOf().

Once bound, future citations route to the wallet. Previously-escrowed shares can be claimed via UnclaimedYieldEscrow.claim() — which itself checks NameRegistry.walletOf == claimer so even an operator key compromise cannot drain escrow to an arbitrary address.

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Contracts

All on Kite testnet (chain 2368) unless noted:

On Avalanche Fuji (chain 43113):

Same address on both chains is a CREATE2-deterministic coincidence from the deployer EOA + nonce — not a precompile, just clean ordering.

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What's deliberately not on-chain

• Paper catalog (web/data/papers.json) — 32 real papers from OpenAlex. Off-chain because demo data; production would use a real research-discovery service.
• In-flight session state — agents stream events via Server-Sent Events. Session caps are enforced server-side per-signature, not on-chain (a Kite Passport upgrade would push this on-chain).
• Yield generator — UnclaimedYieldEscrow simulates APY in-contract via apyBps * elapsed. Production swaps the math for a Lucid vault view — one-line change documented in the contract NatSpec.

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Further reading

• Agent Passport (deeper dive)
• Gasless flow (paymaster + AA)
• Testing (how invariants are enforced)
• Security model (the threat model)