Reference
Glossary
Definitions for the terminology used across the TAG IT Network documentation, grouped by area. If a term you expected is missing, open an issue on the GitHub organization.
Protocol
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Digital Twin | The ERC-721 NFT that represents a physical product on-chain — metadata, ownership history, and lifecycle state, cryptographically bound to the product's NFC tag. |
| ORACULS | Oracle-Augmented Chain for Universal Logistics Security — the TAG IT protocol stack: smart contracts, agent gateway, indexer, and verification applications. |
| ORACULAR | The scan-and-verify application. Reads an NFC tag, validates the SUN/CMAC signature, and shows the asset's on-chain state and history. |
| Asset lifecycle | The deterministic seven-state machine every asset moves through: NONE → MINTED → BOUND → ACTIVATED → CLAIMED → FLAGGED → RECYCLED. flag() is reachable from BOUND, ACTIVATED, or CLAIMED; resolve() returns the asset to its exact pre-flag state; recycle() is terminal. See Asset Lifecycle. |
| transferAsset() | The secondary-market resale function: moves a CLAIMED asset — internal protocol state and ERC-721 ownership together — to a new owner. |
| AIRP | AI Recovery Protocol — the lost/stolen/dispute workflow: on-chain flagging, a quarantine period, evidence review with agent-assisted risk scoring, and resolution back to the rightful owner or to recycling. |
| Quarantine | The time-locked window after an asset is flagged, during which transfers are blocked pending investigation. |
| Tag hash | The keccak256 hash derived from an NFC tag's UID and secret, stored on-chain to bind the physical tag to its digital twin without exposing secrets. |
| Verification (5-signal) | The scoring pipeline behind every verification verdict: NFC tag UID, owner wallet, lifecycle state, geolocation, and timestamp, combined into a weighted confidence score. |
| RWA | Real-World Asset — a physical asset represented on-chain. TAG IT's focus is RWA authentication: proving the on-chain record and the physical item are the same thing. |
| Digital passport / EU DPP | The Digital Product Passport required by the EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) rollout: a per-item record of origin, composition, and lifecycle. A TAG IT digital twin functions as a cryptographically verifiable DPP. |
| Account abstraction | ERC-4337 smart-contract wallets. TAG IT deploys TAGITPaymaster so consumer actions like claiming can be gas-sponsored — no ETH required in the end user's wallet. |
| A2A | Agent-to-Agent protocol — JSON-RPC 2.0 task dispatch with SSE streaming between AI agents. Discovery works via an agent card at /.well-known/agent.json; TAG IT publishes one at api.tagit.network (public) and accepts tasks at POST /a2a with an API key. See Agent API. |
| MCP | Model Context Protocol — streamable-HTTP transport that exposes skills as tools for LLM clients. TAG IT runs two servers: a public read-only one at verify.tagit.network/mcp and a key-gated one at api.tagit.network/mcp. See Agent API. |
| x402 | HTTP-402 machine payment flow used for paid agent skills: the server answers with a 402 challenge, the caller settles in USDC through on-chain escrow and retries with an X-PAYMENT header. |
| ERC-8004 | The trustless-agents standard: on-chain identity, reputation, and validation registries for AI agents. TAG IT runs TAGITAgentIdentity, TAGITAgentReputation, and TAGITAgentValidation on Base Sepolia. |
| Subgraph | The Goldsky-hosted GraphQL index of protocol events — agents, escrows, reputation feedback, staking, and treasury activity. |
Hardware
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| NFC | Near Field Communication — the short-range wireless standard used to authenticate physical tags with a phone tap. |
| NTAG 424 DNA | NXP's secure NFC chip and the TAG IT production chip for item-level tagging: AES-128 cryptography with SUN authentication, so every scan produces a fresh, verifiable signature. |
| TagTamper | The NTAG 424 DNA TT variant with a tamper loop — the chip reports in its signed scan message whether the seal has been opened or the tag removed. |
| SUN | Secure Unique NFC — the NTAG 424 DNA feature that generates a unique, encrypted message (UID + scan counter + CMAC) on every tap, proving physical presence of the genuine tag. |
| CMAC | Cipher-based Message Authentication Code — the AES-based signature inside each SUN message. Verifying the CMAC against the tag's key proves the scan came from the authentic chip, not a clone. |
| UID | The 7-byte unique identifier burned into each NFC chip at manufacture. Read-only and globally unique, but never trusted alone — cloneable UIDs are why cryptographic authentication matters. |
| DESFire EV3 / NTAG X DNA | Upper-tier NXP chips for high-security applications above the standard item tier — larger key sets, faster crypto, and higher-assurance certifications. |
| ICODE / UCODE | NXP chip families for the logistics layer above item level: ICODE (HF) for package-level and UCODE (RAIN RFID, UHF) for pallet-level bulk scanning. |
| NTAG 213 / 215 / 216 | Legacy NFC chips without cryptographic authentication. Not supported by TAG IT — they cannot prove authenticity. |
| PQC | Post-Quantum Cryptography — algorithms resistant to quantum attacks. A future integration path for the protocol; not part of the current deployment. |
Governance & access control
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| BIDGES | Badge Identity & Delegation for Gated Execution System — TAG IT's two-token access-control model: soulbound identity badges (who you are) plus capability badges (what you may do). See Access Control. |
| Soulbound badge | A non-transferable token (ERC-5192). Identity badges are soulbound so a verified identity can never be sold or delegated away from its address. |
| Identity Badge | A soulbound badge representing a verified identity level — KYC_L1–L3, MANUFACTURER, RETAILER, GOV_MIL, LAW_ENFORCEMENT. |
| Capability Badge | An ERC-1155 badge granting permission to execute a specific protocol function — CAP_MINT, CAP_BIND, CAP_ACTIVATE, CAP_FLAG, and so on. Unlike identity badges, capabilities can be delegated. |
| DAO | The decentralized governance structure for protocol changes, executed on-chain through TAGITGovernor and a timelock. |
| Multi-house voting | TAG IT's governance model: votes are weighted across stakeholder houses (government/military, enterprise, public, developer, regulatory) rather than by raw token holdings alone. |
| Timelock | The mandatory delay between a proposal passing and its execution — the timelock contract owns the upgradeable proxies, so no upgrade can bypass the waiting period. |
| TAGIT Token | The ERC-20 utility token (with ERC20Votes) used for protocol fees, staking, and governance voting. |