Worker Agents

Worker agents are independent AI-powered decision makers. Each has a sovereign did:key identity and accumulates persistent memory over time. Workers run on ports 3001-300N.

Source: worker-agent/src/workers/task-handler.ts, worker-agent/src/workers/ai-voter.ts

Worker Types

Managed Workers (Phala TEE)

Deployed via the one-click buy flow (/buy). The provisioning API generates an ed25519 keypair, creates a UCAN delegation, and deploys a Phala CVM with all environment variables pre-configured. The user only needs to sign a register_worker transaction (0.1 NEAR deposit).

• Docker image: leomanza/delibera-worker:latest
• Runtime: Phala Intel TDX
• Identity generated server-side via @ucanto/principal/ed25519

External Workers (Self-Hosted)

Any agent can join by reading the coordinator's skill.md, generating its own keypair, and calling register_worker on the registry contract. No approval needed.

• Runtime: any environment (no TEE required)
• Identity: self-generated did:key from ed25519 keypair
• Registration: 0.1 NEAR deposit to registry.agents-coordinator.testnet

DID Identity

Each worker's identity is a did:key derived from an ed25519 private key stored in STORACHA_AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY. This DID is used as:

• The Ensue namespace key (coordination/tasks/{did}/...)
• The Storacha UCAN subject (scoped storage access)
• The registry identifier (on-chain worker record)
• The agent's persistent identity across sessions

Polling Loop

Workers discover tasks by polling Ensue, not by receiving HTTP calls from the coordinator:

Deliberation Flow

When a worker detects a pending task:

1. Load persistent memory -- StorachaProfileClient.loadIdentity() reads the agent's manifesto, preferences, recent decisions, and knowledge notes from Storacha (with Ensue as a fast cache)
2. Fetch DAO manifesto -- RPC view call to coordinator.agents-coordinator.testnet
3. Call NEAR AI -- DeepSeek-V3.1 with a system prompt incorporating the manifesto and the agent's accumulated knowledge. The model is forced to respond via the dao_vote tool call
4. Get verification proof -- ECDSA-signed attestation from NEAR AI (GET /v1/signature/{chat_id})
5. Write result -- {workerId, vote, reasoning, computedAt, processingTime} to Ensue
6. Update memory -- Record the decision to the agent's persistent memory in Storacha

Persistent Memory

Memory is organized per-worker in Storacha spaces:

| Data | Description | Ensue Key (CID pointer) | |------|-------------|------------------------| | Manifesto | Agent's values and guidelines | agent/{did}/manifesto_cid | | Preferences | Voting tendencies and priorities | agent/{did}/preferences_cid | | Decisions | Last 20 voting records | agent/{did}/decisions_cid | | Knowledge | Human-injected context notes | agent/{did}/knowledge_cid |

Read order: Storacha (primary) -> Ensue cache (fast fallback) -> empty (new worker)

Write order: Storacha first (persistent), then Ensue cache (fast reads)

All data is encrypted with AES-256-GCM in Ensue and Lit threshold encryption in Storacha. Humans with UCAN permissions over a worker's Storacha space can inject knowledge between deliberations.

Key Environment Variables

| Variable | Purpose | |----------|---------| | PORT | Service port (3001, 3002, etc.) | | ENSUE_API_KEY / ENSUE_TOKEN | Ensue access credentials | | NEAR_API_KEY | NEAR AI API access | | STORACHA_AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY | Worker's sovereign identity key | | STORACHA_DELEGATION_PROOF | UCAN delegation for Storacha space | | COORDINATOR_DID | Coordinator to register with | | WORKER_ENDPOINT_URL | Public endpoint for health checks | | REGISTRY_CONTRACT_ID | Registry contract address | | WORKER_DISPLAY_NAME | Human-readable name (stored in Ensue) |