terms.txt: A Consent and Compensation Protocol for Agentic Web Access
Rajarshi Chowdhury (independent researcher) specifies terms.txt, a robots.txt-style file that states per-path, per-purpose access terms for AI crawlers and agents, together with a signed negotiation and receipt exchange that the origin server enforces.
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Problem: Automated clients now make up most web requests, and large AI platforms fetch thousands of pages per visitor they send back. robots.txt cannot express identity, purpose, terms or price.
The file: terms.txt declares machine-access terms per path and per purpose.
The exchange: Web Bot Auth signatures, signed intent, delegation tokens, HTTP 402 negotiation and signed receipts, enforced by the origin.
Scope: The paper separates what the exchange can enforce, what it can only audit, and what is left to contract.
Cost: A dependency-free implementation adds 0.20 to 0.65 ms per request on one vCPU.
Abstract
The open web ran on an unwritten bargain: sites admitted crawlers, and search engines sent visitors back. Public measurements show that bargain breaking under AI crawlers and agents. Automated clients now make up most requests, training dominates Cloudflare-classified crawling, and the largest AI platforms fetch thousands of pages for each visitor they return. The web's common control, robots.txt, cannot express identity, purpose, terms, or price, can be circumvented, and newer alternatives are largely proprietary CDN features. We specify terms.txt, a robots.txt-style file for per-path, per-purpose machine-access terms, plus an origin-enforced exchange using Web Bot Auth signatures, signed intent, delegation tokens, HTTP 402 negotiation, and signed receipts. We define what the exchange can enforce, audit, and leave to contract. A dependency-free implementation adds 0.20 to 0.65 ms per request on one vCPU.