Web Bot Auth

Drafts & Status

Where the standardization stands — manually tracked, updated regularly.

Documents

Milestones

  • Working Group chartered and active
  • Implementations in production at Cloudflare, AWS WAF, Akamai, Vercel
  • OpenAI and Anthropic sign their agent/crawler traffic
  • RFC publication: pending

Note: This page is maintained manually today; an automated draft tracker is on the roadmap.

RFC 9421 — HTTP Message Signatures — RFC

The foundation. Published 2022, widely implemented.

draft-meunier-web-bot-auth-architecture — Datatracker

The core WBA architecture document — how signing, directories and verification fit together. Current version 05, WG document.

draft-meunier-webbotauth-registry — Datatracker

Registry and Signature Agent Card — machine-readable metadata for agents. Version 03, May 2026.

draft-nottingham-webbotauth-use-cases — Datatracker

Use cases and scope of the Working Group. Version 02.

webbotauth Working Group — Charter

Chartered and active in the IETF Web and Internet Transport area.