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Glossary

The coordination layer for autonomous agents. When your AI systems need to elect a leader, vote on decisions, or prevent conflicts — Arbiter provides the infrastructure for machines to reach agreement.

  • Agent

    An autonomous software system that takes actions without direct human control. In Arbiter, agents are the participants in consensus protocols.

  • Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)

    The ability of a distributed system to function correctly even when some participants behave maliciously. Requires at least 2/3 honest participants.

  • Commit-Reveal

    A voting scheme where participants first submit encrypted votes ("commit"), then reveal them simultaneously. Prevents voters from changing their vote after seeing others' choices.

  • Consensus

    Agreement among distributed participants on a single value or decision. Arbiter provides infrastructure for agents to reach consensus.

  • Equivocation

    When a participant sends conflicting messages (e.g., voting both "yes" and "no"). Detectable and punishable in Arbiter.

  • Fencing Token

    A monotonically increasing number issued with each lock acquisition. Used to reject operations from agents that have lost their locks.

  • Finality

    The point at which a decision becomes irreversible. In Arbiter, on-chain commitments provide finality.

  • Heartbeat

    A periodic signal from a leader proving they're still active. Missing heartbeats trigger re-election.

  • Leader Election

    The process of selecting one agent to act as coordinator for a group. Arbiter implements Raft-style elections with blockchain finality.

  • Quorum

    The minimum number of participants required for a valid decision. Typically a majority (>50%) or supermajority (>66%).

  • Sybil Attack

    Creating many fake identities to gain disproportionate influence. Arbiter resists this through stake requirements and reputation weighting.

  • Swarm

    A group of agents that coordinate through Arbiter. Swarms have configurable rules for voting, elections, and fault tolerance.

  • Term

    A period of leadership. Each election increments the term number, providing a clear sequence of who led when.

  • x402

    An HTTP-based payment protocol that enables micropayments via the "402 Payment Required" status code. Arbiter uses x402 for per-operation billing.