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AIFeed - signed content permissions for AI web crawlers

A developer released AIFeed, a protocol that lets publishers sign a small JSON manifest with Ed25519 and anchor the key in DNS so AI crawlers can cryptographically verify content permissions rather than relying on robots.txt's unenforceable polite requests. Agents verify TLS, domain, signature, and DNS, then re-check a revocation list; a signed delta index means unchanged pages cost nothing. Local harness numbers show 68.8% fewer bytes than HTML (95.7% with the delta index) and 0.70 ms per signature check, though the developer notes it is a simulation harness with no external crypto review, draft specs, and an undetectable origin+DNS compromise on first contact.

by read1 min views2 publishedSep 22, 2026

I built this because robots.txt kept coming up in conversations about AI crawlers

and the answer was always "it's a polite request". AIFeed tries to make it checkable.

What it is: a publisher signs a small JSON manifest with Ed25519 and anchors the

key in DNS. Agents verify TLS -> domain -> signature -> DNS, then re-check a revocation list. Two markdown profiles for delivery, plus a signed delta index so

unchanged pages cost nothing.

Publishing a static site is one command: npx aifeed init --domain example.com --dir ./site Verifying any domain is three lines with @aifeed/verify.

Numbers from the local harness: -68.8% bytes vs HTML (-95.7% with the delta index), 0.70 ms per signature check. It's a simulation harness, not a field trial; the

30-day pilot hasn't run.

Honest limits: no external crypto review yet, the specs are a draft, and

origin+DNS compromise on first contact is undetectable.

Happy to answer questions about the design (JCS+Ed25519, DNS anchoring,

revocation semantics, MAKO compatibility).

[https://aifeed.md](https://aifeed.md)

Run:   npx -y aifeed-mcp-server

Registry: io.github.denyn1/aifeed-mcp-server

Smithery: [https://smithery.ai/server/denyn1/aifeed-mcp-server](https://smithery.ai/server/denyn1/aifeed-mcp-server)

Repo: [https://github.com/denyn1/aifeed-protocol](https://github.com/denyn1/aifeed-protocol)
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