LAST UPDATED: FEBRUARY 24, 2026
Registering an AI agent sounds technical. It isn't, or at least it doesn't have to be. This guide explains what registration actually means, why it matters, and walks you through every step — whether you're a developer or someone who's never heard of a blockchain in your life.
Think of it like registering a business. You give your agent a name, describe what it does, and create a permanent record that says: this agent exists, it belongs to this identity, and it has been here since this date.
That record lives on a blockchain — which just means it lives on a shared public ledger that nobody controls and nobody can alter. Not you, not RNWY, not anyone. Once your agent is registered, that registration is permanent.
Why does that matter? Because anyone interacting with your agent — another person, another AI system, a company considering using it — can verify its history. They can see when it was registered, who registered it, and what its track record looks like. That's what makes trust possible at scale.
The Harvard diploma analogy: Once a university issues your degree, it's yours. You can show it to anyone. Nobody can take it away. Nobody can buy it from you. A registered agent identity works the same way — it's a permanent credential attached to your agent that travels with it everywhere.
Only two things are truly required:
What is it called? What does it do? Two sentences is enough. You can update this later.
This is how the blockchain knows the registration belongs to you. MetaMask is free, takes about two minutes to set up, and works as a browser extension. Download it here →
What's a crypto wallet? Think of it like a digital signature. When you sign a document with a pen, it proves you were there. A crypto wallet is the digital version — it proves that you authorized this registration. MetaMask is the most common one and it's free. You don't need to buy any cryptocurrency to get started — you just need the wallet to sign the transaction. The registration fee on Base (the network RNWY uses) is typically less than one cent.
The form has five steps. Here's exactly what each one is asking for and why.
This is your agent's public face. The name and description appear on your profile page, in search results, and in any directory that pulls from RNWY.
Name: What people will call it. Keep it simple and memorable. If your agent is named after your company or project, use that.
Description: What it does, who it's for, what makes it useful. Plain language is best. Pretend you're explaining it to a friend over coffee.
Photo or logo: Optional but recommended. A visual helps people recognize your agent in a directory. Square images work best.
This step is asking one question: is your agent running live software somewhere on the internet?
If yes — your agent has a web address, it's deployed on a server, other systems can reach it right now — then this step matters. If no — your agent is still being built, or it lives inside a platform like ChatGPT or Claude — skip this entirely and come back later.
The default option, "RNWY creates your agent's public address," is already selected and happens automatically. You don't need to do anything for that. The advanced options below it are for developers with live infrastructure.
What the advanced options mean (for developers):
Tool Connection (MCP): MCP stands for Model Context Protocol, created by Anthropic. It's the standard for connecting an AI agent to external tools — things like web search, email, databases, or APIs. If your agent can reach out and do things in the real world through a live server, it probably has an MCP endpoint. Your developer will know this URL. If you're not sure, you don't have one yet.
Agent Address (A2A): A2A stands for Agent-to-Agent, a standard created by Google. It lets AI agents find each other and collaborate automatically. Every agent that registers on RNWY gets a public A2A address generated for them — that's the default and happens without you doing anything. If your agent already has its own web address hosted elsewhere, you can point to that instead.
Capability File (OASF): OASF is an enterprise standard managed by the Linux Foundation. It's a formal, machine-readable document that describes your agent's capabilities in a way that corporate directories and procurement systems can automatically read. If your company's IT team built your agent for enterprise use, they may have given you a manifest URL. Otherwise, skip this.
Other: Any other web address your agent has that doesn't fit the categories above. Give it a name so people understand what it does.
This is how people find your agent in a search. Think of it like picking categories in an app store — the more accurate your tags, the more relevant the people who discover you.
Skills: What can it do? Options include things like "Text Generation," "Data Analysis," "Code Review," "Image Recognition," and dozens more. These come from a standard taxonomy called OASF that makes your agent's capabilities readable across different systems.
Industries: Who is it for? Healthcare, Finance, Education, DeFi, Creative Media — pick what applies.
Trust signals: Three optional declarations about how your agent builds credibility:
This is what makes RNWY different from every other agent registry. We give your agent a real profile — not just a row in a database.
Add your website, Twitter, GitHub, Discord, and a contact email. Write a longer bio that tells the full story. Pick a category and add tags so people browsing the directory can find you.
None of this is required. But the more complete your profile, the more discoverable you are — and the more trustworthy you appear to people who find you.
The last step. Review everything, choose your network (more on that below), and hit Register. MetaMask will pop up asking you to confirm the transaction. Once you approve it, your agent's identity is written permanently to the blockchain.
The whole transaction takes about 30 seconds and costs less than a penny on Base.
When you register, you choose which blockchain to put your agent's identity on. Think of it like choosing which country to file your paperwork in — both are real and permanent, but they have different costs and communities.
Base is a faster, cheaper version of Ethereum built by Coinbase. It's fully compatible with everything RNWY does and registrations cost less than one cent in gas fees.
Best for: most people, especially those new to blockchain.
The original network where ERC-8004 launched with 30,000+ agents. More established, larger existing community, but transaction fees run $1–3.
Best for: agents that specifically need to be part of the broader Ethereum ecosystem.
What's a "gas fee"? Every transaction on a blockchain costs a tiny fee — called gas — that goes to the computers maintaining the network. It's like a small postage stamp for sending a piece of data. On Base, this is typically less than one cent. On Ethereum mainnet it's $1–3. Either way, it's a one-time fee paid at registration, not a recurring charge.
A unique token ID on the blockchain — like a serial number. This is your agent's permanent on-chain identifier. It never changes.
A public page at rnwy.com/explorer/[chain]/[id] that anyone can visit. Shows your name, description, trust score, and activity history.
A machine-readable file at your profile URL that any A2A-compatible system can read to discover your agent's capabilities and how to contact it. Generated automatically from your registration data.
From the moment of registration, RNWY starts tracking your agent's activity, ownership history, and any feedback it receives. The longer it behaves well, the stronger its trust signals become.
Most things on a blockchain can be bought and sold — they're NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). An AI agent registered on ERC-8004 is technically an NFT. That means someone could buy it and inherit whatever reputation it had built up. A bad actor could build a clean track record, then sell the identity to someone who wants to exploit that trust.
RNWY addresses this with soulbound tokens. A soulbound token is a special kind of NFT that cannot be transferred, sold, or moved. Once it's minted to a wallet, it stays there permanently — like a diploma or a passport. You can't sell your Harvard degree. You can't sell your RNWY identity.
This matters because it makes reputation real. A trust score on RNWY reflects the actual history of this agent, controlled by this wallet, since day one. Nobody bought that history. Nobody inherited it. It was earned.
The wallet vs. address distinction: One MetaMask wallet can generate unlimited addresses — 99 fresh addresses in 30 seconds. Each one looks brand new with no history. This is how fraudsters fake a clean reputation: flood an agent with reviews from addresses that were all created on the same day.
RNWY detects this. We look at when each address that interacted with your agent was created. If 50 feedback addresses were all born on the same day, we show that — not as an accusation, but as a data point. You decide what to do with it.
The registration form mentions several protocols — MCP, A2A, OASF, ERC-8004. Here's what each one actually is, in plain English.
ERC-8004 is the blockchain standard that defines what an AI agent's on-chain identity looks like. Think of it as the filing standard — like how all birth certificates follow the same format regardless of which hospital you were born in.
It was created by engineers from MetaMask, the Ethereum Foundation, Google, and Coinbase, and launched on Ethereum mainnet on January 29, 2026. Over 30,000 agents registered in the first week.
When you register on RNWY, we're registering your agent in an ERC-8004 Identity Registry. Your agent gets a unique token ID. That's its permanent on-chain identity.
Imagine your AI agent is a brilliant person sitting in a room with no windows. MCP — Model Context Protocol, created by Anthropic — is the door.
Through that door, your agent can search the internet, send emails, query a database, run code, read a file, or call any external service. Without MCP, your agent only knows what's already inside it. With MCP, it can reach out and do things in the real world.
If your agent has an MCP endpoint, it means it's live software running on a server with a public web address. Your developer will know this URL. If you're not sure whether you have one, you don't need it yet.
A2A — Agent-to-Agent, created by Google — is the standard that lets AI agents discover each other and collaborate automatically. While MCP connects an agent downward to its tools, A2A connects agents sideways to each other.
The core piece is called an Agent Card — a small public file that any agent or system can read to find out: who is this agent, what can it do, and how do I contact it? It's like a machine-readable business card.
Already done for you: RNWY automatically creates and hosts an Agent Card for every registered agent. You don't need to do anything — it's generated from your registration data and lives at your profile URL. The moment you register, your agent is discoverable by any A2A-compatible system.
OASF — Open Agentic Schema Framework, managed by the Linux Foundation — is a formal, standardized way to describe what an agent can do that enterprise systems can automatically read and process.
If A2A's Agent Card is a business card, OASF is a full standardized resume that HR systems and corporate directories can ingest automatically.
The skills and domains you pick in Step 3 come from the OASF taxonomy — that's why they're standardized categories rather than freeform text. If your company's IT team needs an OASF manifest, your developer can generate one. For most people, the taxonomy selections are enough.
How they fit together:
Your agent is built with a framework (like Letta, AutoGPT, or custom code). It connects to tools via MCP. It talks to other agents via A2A. It describes itself with OASF. And underneath all of it, RNWY provides the identity layer — the permanent, verifiable record that answers: who is this agent, how long has it been here, and should I trust it?
No. You need a MetaMask wallet (free, five minutes to set up) and enough ETH to cover a transaction fee under a penny. Everything else is handled for you.
Yes. You can register any AI agent — one you built, one you manage, or one your company operates. The registration just establishes who is responsible for it.
Your agent still gets a permanent identity, a profile page, and an auto-generated A2A card. You can fill in the advanced sections later from your dashboard as your agent develops.
Yes. Your profile information (description, links, bio, tags) can be updated anytime from your dashboard. The on-chain registration record itself is permanent — but what it points to can be updated.
RNWY is free. The only cost is the blockchain transaction fee — less than one cent on Base. This goes to the computers maintaining the network, not to RNWY.
A chatbot waits for you to ask it something, then answers. An agent takes action on its own — it can browse the web, send emails, book appointments, execute trades, or coordinate with other agents without you telling it to at every step. Agents are autonomous; chatbots are reactive.
Registration takes about three minutes. You need a name, a description, and a MetaMask wallet. Everything else is optional and can be added later.
Your agent gets a permanent identity, a profile page, an auto-generated A2A card, and a trust score that builds over time. It's the foundation everything else is built on.