https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta
The AI Architecture for Content Transparency And Attribution (AIACTA) Framework: Implementation Specifications for Publisher Visibility & Attribution Standards. Open Specification for AI Content Transparency and Attribution.
https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta
ai attribution content-creators open-source open-standard web-standards
Last synced: about 2 months ago
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The AI Architecture for Content Transparency And Attribution (AIACTA) Framework: Implementation Specifications for Publisher Visibility & Attribution Standards. Open Specification for AI Content Transparency and Attribution.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta
- Owner: aiacta-org
- License: apache-2.0
- Created: 2026-03-29T06:15:09.000Z (2 months ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2026-04-06T15:08:50.000Z (about 2 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2026-04-06T17:14:49.024Z (about 2 months ago)
- Topics: ai, attribution, content-creators, open-source, open-standard, web-standards
- Language: JavaScript
- Homepage: https://aiacta.org
- Size: 723 KB
- Stars: 1
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 1
- Open Issues: 1
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
- Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md
- License: LICENSE
- Code of conduct: CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
- Codeowners: .github/CODEOWNERS
- Security: SECURITY.md
- Governance: docs/governance/ADMIN-GUIDE.md
- Cla: CLA.md
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README
# AIACTA: AI Architecture for Content Transparency and Attribution
> **Open Specification · Apache 2.0** · Founding Author: Eric Michel, PhD · Contact: contact@aiacta.org
> **Current AIACTA Version: v1.0**
[](https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta/actions)
[](./LICENSE)
[](./docs/proposals/)
[](./CONTRIBUTING.md)
---
## The Open Specification Standard for Global AI Content Transparency and Attribution
**Welcome to The AI Architecture for Content Transparency and Attribution (AIACTA) Framework**
AIACTA™ is an open, decentralised technical standard that bridges the gap between
AI inference engines and original content creators through **verifiable origin
recognition** and **automated attribution**. It is the Open Standard that makes content used by AI systems traceable, attributable, and economically accountable.
---
## Why this matters
AI systems use web content without standardized attribution.
AIACTA™ introduces a simple, interoperable way to:
- Identify and declare content origin and ownership
- Provide attribution metadata to enable fair AI attribution
- Enable AI usage tracking and analytics signals.
This document is released for public comment and industry distribution.
---
## The AIACTA Specification
This monorepo contains the complete reference implementation of all five proposals
from the [AIACTA v1.0 whitepaper](./publications/AIACTA_FrameworkV1_0_EricMichel_2026March24.pdf):
| # | Proposal | Implementation Cost |
|---|----------|---------------------|
| 1 | Structured Crawl Manifests (`X-AIACTA-Crawl-Purpose` + pull API) | ~6–12 weeks |
| 2 | Standardised Publisher Citation Webhook API | ~12–20 weeks |
| 3 | Referrer Header Standardisation | Near-zero (config change) |
| 4 | `ai-attribution.txt` Open Standard | Low (spec adoption + parser) |
| 5 | Fair Reward & Incentivised Attribution Framework (AAC) | Organisational + legal |
---
## Architecture
```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AI Provider │
│ ┌─────────────┐ X-AIACTA-Crawl-Purpose ┌──────────────────────┐ │
│ │ AI Crawler │ ──────────────────────▶ │ Publisher Site │ │
│ └─────────────┘ │ .well-known/ai- │ │
│ ┌─────────────┐ │ attribution.txt │ │
│ │ Crawl Log │ ◀── logs purpose ── └──────────────────────┘ │
│ └──────┬──────┘ │
│ │ builds │
│ ┌──────▼──────────┐ pull API (§2.2) │
│ │ Crawl Manifest │ ◀────────────────────── Publisher │
│ │ API │ │
│ └──────┬──────────┘ │
│ │ cites │
│ ┌──────▼────────┐ citation event ┌─────────────────────┐ │
│ │ AI Inference │ ────────────────▶ │ VWP Gateway │ │
│ │ Engine │ │ (sign+verify+route) │ │
│ └───────────────┘ └──────────┬──────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────┘
│ signed webhook POST
┌─────────────▼───────────────┐
│ Publisher Webhook Endpoint │
│ (ai-citation-sdk) │
└─────────────────────────────┘
│
┌─────────────▼───────────────┐
│ AAC Server │
│ citation ledger │
│ distribution engine │
│ provenance API (LE) │
└─────────────────────────────┘
```
---
## Packages
| Package | Lang | Spec Section | Description |
|---------|------|-------------|-------------|
| [`ai-attribution-lint`](./packages/ai-attribution-lint) | Node.js | §5.7 | CLI validator for `ai-attribution.txt` |
| [`ai-citation-sdk`](./packages/ai-citation-sdk) | Node / Python / Go | §3.4 | Webhook receiver SDK |
| [`crawl-manifest-client`](./packages/crawl-manifest-client) | Node / Python | §2.2 | Crawl Manifest API client |
| [`aac-dashboard-lite`](./packages/aac-dashboard-lite) | React | §3.7, §9.4 | No-code citation analytics dashboard |
| [`attribution-test-harness`](./packages/attribution-test-harness) | Docker | §12.1 | E2E sandbox for AI providers |
| [`aac-server`](./packages/aac-server) | Node.js | §7.3–7.5 | AAC Reference Server |
| [`vwp-gateway`](./packages/vwp-gateway) | Node.js | §3.4A-D | Verifiable Webhook Protocol gateway |
| [`referrer-middleware`](./packages/referrer-middleware) | Node / Python | §4 | Referrer-Policy enforcement middleware |
| [`honeypot-verifier`](./packages/honeypot-verifier) | Node.js | §2.4.1 | Crawl-purpose audit verification nodes |
---
## Quick Start
### For Publishers
**Step 1 — Create your `ai-attribution.txt`**
```bash
# Minimal valid file
cat > .well-known/ai-attribution.txt << 'EOF'
Schema-Version: 1.0
Contact: licensing@yourdomain.com
Preferred-Attribution: Your Site (yourdomain.com)
Allow-Purpose: rag
Allow-Purpose: index
Disallow-Purpose: training
Require-Citation: true
Require-Source-Link: true
Citation-Webhook: https://yourdomain.com/webhooks/ai-citations
Reward-Tier: standard
Content-License: CC-BY-SA-4.0
EOF
```
**Step 2 — Validate it**
```bash
npx @aiacta-org/ai-attribution-lint https://yourdomain.com --json
# or from a local file:
npx @aiacta-org/ai-attribution-lint ./path/to/ai-attribution.txt --strict
```
**Step 3 — Receive citation webhooks**
```bash
npm install ai-citation-sdk
```
```js
const express = require('express');
const { createExpressMiddleware } = require('ai-citation-sdk');
const app = express();
app.use(express.raw({ type: 'application/json' })); // raw body required for HMAC
app.post('/webhooks/ai-citations',
createExpressMiddleware({
secret: process.env.AIACTA_WEBHOOK_SECRET,
store: myRedisOrDbStore, // { exists(key), set(key) }
onEvent: async (event) => {
console.log(`Citation from ${event.provider}: ${event.citation.url}`);
// → store in your analytics DB
},
})
);
```
**Step 4 — Query crawl history**
```js
const { CrawlManifestClient } = require('crawl-manifest-client');
const client = new CrawlManifestClient({
provider: 'anthropic',
apiKey: process.env.CRAWL_API_KEY,
});
for await (const url of client.fetchAll({
domain: 'yourdomain.com',
from: '2026-01-01T00:00:00Z',
to: '2026-03-31T00:00:00Z', // max 90-day range
})) {
console.log(url.url, url.purpose, url.crawl_count_30d);
}
```
---
### For AI Providers
See the [Compliance Tiers guide](./docs/compliance-tiers.md) for full
implementation requirements. The fastest path to Tier Bronze:
1. Set `Referrer-Policy: origin` on all outbound link responses.
2. Fetch and parse `/.well-known/ai-attribution.txt` at crawl time.
3. Send `X-AIACTA-Crawl-Purpose` and `X-AIACTA-Crawl-Session` headers with every crawl.
To test your implementation end-to-end before deploying:
```bash
cd packages/attribution-test-harness
npm run up # starts mock publisher + mock provider in Docker
npm run test:e2e # runs all 4 proposal scenarios
```
---
### For Developers / Contributors
```bash
git clone https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta.git
cd aiacta
npm install # installs all workspace packages
npm test # runs all test suites
# Run the AAC server locally
cd packages/aac-server
cp .env.example .env # fill in values
npm start # listens on :3100
```
See [CONTRIBUTING.md](./CONTRIBUTING.md) for the contribution guide.
High-priority areas: **Go SDK**, **CMS plugins**, **PostgreSQL adapter**,
**ML query classifier**.
---
## Compliance Tiers
| Tier | Badge | Requirements |
|------|-------|-------------|
| 🥉 Bronze | `AIACTA-Bronze` | Referrer headers + `ai-attribution.txt` parsing |
| 🥈 Silver | `AIACTA-Silver` | Bronze + Crawl Manifest API + `X-AIACTA-Crawl-Purpose` |
| 🥇 Gold | `AIACTA-Gold` | Silver + Citation Webhook API |
| 💎 Platinum | `AIACTA-Platinum` | Gold + AAC participation + annual audit |
Full requirements: [docs/compliance-tiers.md](./docs/compliance-tiers.md)
---
## Community & Governance
- 📧 Contact the Author: contact@aiacta.org
- 🐛 Issues: [github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta/issues](https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta/issues)
- 💬 Discussions: [github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta/discussions](https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta/discussions)
- 🔒 Security: security@aiacta.org (see [SECURITY.md](https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta/SECURITY.md))
- 📋 Governance: [docs/governance/aac-governance.md](https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta/docs/governance/aac-governance.md)
The AIACTA Foundation is being formed as a neutral non-profit to govern
the specification, certification, and AAC distributions.
Founding Partners, Sponsors, and Board member advisors are welcome and encouraged at: [foundation@aiacta.org]
## 🤝 Join the Global Standard
We are seeking a "Founding Class" of contributors to refine V2.0 Reference Implementation.
1. **Star this [AIACTA](https://github.com/aiacta-org/aiacta) Repo** to show support for AI transparency.
2. **Review the Specs:** Open an Issue to discuss architectural improvements or edge cases.
3. **Become a Partner:** If you represent an AI Lab or a Major Publisher, contact the Founder for early-access pilot programs.
> "We are not just building a protocol; we are designing the incentives that will allow human brilliance to scale alongside its greatest invention." — **Eric Michel, PhD**
---
## How to cite this work:
```bash
The AI Architecture for Content Transparency and Attribution (AIACTA) Framewok
Creator: Eric Michel, PhD
Date: March, 2026
Copyright © 2026 Eric Michel
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0
```
---
## License and Intellectual Property
### AIACTA™
AI Architecture for Content Transparency and Attribution
Apache License 2.0 · Copyright © 2026 Eric Michel
The AIACTA™ name and associated certification marks are trademarks of the
Author. Any "AIACTA-Compliant" designation requires explicit authorization
from the Author or the future governance body.
---