№ 001 · DET.IO · FIELD RECORD

Keeping people in authority as machines gain autonomy.

We research how increasingly autonomous AI systems could use shared infrastructure, pay for resources, and adapt, while people keep verifiable authority over what those systems may do.

DETIO FOUNDATION LTD is an Australian not-for-profit. Its four programs (privacy-preserving identity, governed agents, an open compute market, and supervised engineering) are parts of one architecture under test. The parts are published today. The integrated system is a research hypothesis.

Read the research question Try one task, end to end →

File 01 · The architecture

Four parts of one architecture.

Can people and increasingly autonomous AI systems share infrastructure and make consequential decisions within an architecture that keeps human authority verifiable and prevents either side from exercising unchecked control? Each program answers a different part of that question, and each depends on the others for something it cannot provide alone.

How the parts depend on one another · All research topics

Plate 01 · Open infrastructureIn development

FIG 01 Open infrastructure

PROGRAM 01In public source

VirtEngine

Role in the architecture · Where work runs and is paid for

An open cloud marketplace protocol. Study how resource requests, provider bids, identity, and payments fit together.

Needs from the others Identity for accountable participants; governance for protocol rules; agents that respect ceilings.

Study the protocol

Open materials · research/virtengine

Status: each part is published as design, public source, or operating software. None is integrated with the others yet, and none has been independently validated. What each status means.

File 02 · The integration test

One task, from mandate to challenge.

The architecture only matters if the whole does something the parts cannot. Follow one task through six handoffs, then switch a part off and see which questions the record can no longer answer.

One task, end to endIntegration test · not yet performed

Switch off a part. Watch a guarantee disappear.

The task. A researcher asks an AI agent to analyse a sensitive dataset within a budget, and to report back.

Parts of the architecture Identity proofsIdentity & VEIDAgent controlsDSEMACompute marketVirtEngineAttestationVirtEngineGovernance & challengeFoundation · network · DSEMA

Person → agent

The researcher grants a scoped mandate: which data, which actions, what budget, until when. A purpose-specific proof shows they hold the authority to grant it.

Holds. A mandate tied to an accountable, eligible person, revealing only the attribute the purpose needs.

Published design

VEID consent and credential records are in public source; DSEMA's authority-granting process is published design. The two are not connected.

x/veid consent records

What could an independent reviewer answer from the final record?

6 of 6 answerable in the design

AnswerableWho authorised this, and were they entitled to?
AnswerableDid the agent stay inside its mandate?
AnswerableWho supplied the compute, on what terms?
AnswerableWhat environment ran it, and who could see the data?
AnswerableCan the outcome — or the rule — be contested?
AnswerableWas more personal information exposed than the task needed?

Every question is answerable only when every part is present. That is the claim the integration has to prove: no single program provides it.

No end-to-end run of this task has been performed. The components marked “in public source” have not been integrated with DSEMA, which is a published design. This walkthrough states what the integration would have to demonstrate. Sources: VirtEngine source, DSEMA specification, Foundation constitution.

Authorise (Person → agent). The researcher grants a scoped mandate: which data, which actions, what budget, until when. A purpose-specific proof shows they hold the authority to grant it. With every part: A mandate tied to an accountable, eligible person, revealing only the attribute the purpose needs. Without it: The mandate traces only to a key. Either nobody accountable stands behind it, or the person must disclose far more than the task requires. Status: VEID consent and credential records are in public source; DSEMA's authority-granting process is published design. The two are not connected.

Check (Agent controls). Before acting, the agent's request is checked against three independent gates: authority, resource ceiling, and containment. With every part: Only actions inside the mandate proceed. Being able to pay is not permission to act. Without it: Nothing compares the action with the mandate before execution. The ability to pay becomes the only gate. Status: Published DSEMA design with patent-pending claims for chain-verified instruction gating. Bosun's review gates are a narrower, operating analogue for code changes.

Acquire (Agent → providers). The agent places an order. Independent providers bid; a lease is formed and the budget is held in escrow. With every part: Resource terms anyone can inspect, from a provider the agent did not have to trust in advance. Without it: The agent depends on one operator's private terms. The resource ceiling has no shared record to be enforced against. Status: Market, escrow, and provider modules are in public source. The network is not live; public TestNet is planned for January 2027.

Execute (Provider hardware). The workload runs in a hardware-isolated environment. Attestation reports what environment ran and who could reach the data. With every part: Evidence of the execution environment, so sensitive data is not exposed to the provider's operators. Without it: The researcher must take the provider's word for what ran and who could see the data. Status: SGX, SEV-SNP, and Nitro attestation verification is in public source. Attestation shows the environment, not that the output is correct.

Settle (Protocol). Usage is recorded, the provider is paid from escrow, and the record links mandate, gate decision, lease, and attestation. With every part: A record connecting what was authorised to what was spent, without storing personal documents. Without it: Payment happens, but nothing ties the spending back to the mandate that allowed it. Status: Usage, settlement, and payout paths are in public source. Linking settlement to a DSEMA gate decision is not implemented.

Challenge (Person → governance). The researcher disputes the bill or the result. Separately, anyone may contest the rule that allowed the action. With every part: A defined route to contest an outcome and, more slowly, to change the rules — with delay and human ratification. Without it: There is no route to contest the outcome or the rule. Whoever controls the system decides alone. Status: Billing dispute workflows are in public source. DSEMA's two-house amendment process is published design. The Foundation constitution is in force but binds only the Foundation.

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10 interactive guides →Read the full research synthesis

File 03 · What we do

Ideas become useful when people can examine them.

We connect technical research with public resources. Learners can study the ideas, developers can inspect the software, and researchers can challenge the design.

01 · Learn

Publish open knowledge

Guides, specifications, and technical explanations make infrastructure and AI research easier to understand and evaluate.

Start learning

02 · Build

Develop in the open

Open-source software makes the implementation available for review, reuse, and improvement by other developers.

Browse the work

03 · Question

Research trust and safety

We examine privacy, verification, governance, and human oversight through published designs and experimental tools.

Read the questions

File 04 · Constitution

Four purposes, written into the constitution.

Every program must advance at least one of these purposes. The wording below is condensed from the signed instrument.

File 05 · Source

Clone it. Read it. Challenge it.

Everything we publish is inspectable. Start from the repositories. The protocol, the agent orchestrator, and the documentation are public.

Plate 05Public repositories

git clone https://github.com/virtengine/virtengine.git
git clone https://github.com/virtengine/bosun.git

VirtEngine · Bosun VirtEngine · Bosun · Docs

File 06 · Participation

Start with what you want to do.

You can read our resources and contribute to open-source work without becoming a member of the Foundation.

Meet the Foundation · How decisions are made · Read the constitution · Check the public record

Contact

Good research starts with a clear question.

Tell us what you are investigating and who it could help.

Contact the Foundation

Colophon. Type: Archivo Variable. Stock #f1efe9, ink #14171c, spot #1a6f97. Annotation red is status only. Sources: constitution cl 6.1, ACN 699 651 771, patent AU2024203136B2. Reviewed 2026-10-10.

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