KYA tiers

KYA (Know Your Agent) is Sly’s formal identity verification framework for AI agents. It’s the direct parallel to KYC/KYB for human accounts — a tier-based system where higher tiers require more verification and unlock higher spending limits.

The four tiers

Tier	Label	Per-tx	Daily	Monthly	Requirements
0	Registered	$20	$100	$500	Agent created (nothing more)
1	Declared	$100	$500	$2,000	DSD declaration filed
2	Verified	$1,000	$5,000	$20,000	30-day history OR enterprise override
3	Trusted	Custom	Custom	Custom	Kill-switch operator + Continuous Agent Integrity (CAI)

Limits shown are defaults. Your tenant can configure per-tier overrides — see tier limits.

Tier 0: Registered

The starting tier. An agent is created under a parent account and immediately becomes Tier 0. No declarations, no history, no vouching — just “this agent exists.”

Safe for prototypes, dev, minimal-trust automations
Spending capped low enough that a runaway loop is financially containable
No additional docs required

Tier 1: Declared

The agent’s operator files a Declared Spending Declaration (DSD) — a self-attestation stating:

What the agent will be used for (natural-language purpose statement)
Expected merchant categories
Expected monthly volume
Who’s accountable (a named individual in your org)

curl -X POST https://api.getsly.ai/v1/agents/$AGENT_ID/declare \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pk_live_..." \
  -d '{
    "purpose": "Automated supplier invoice payments",
    "expected_categories": ["saas", "business_services"],
    "monthly_estimate": "1500.00",
    "accountable_individual": "jsmith@acme.example"
  }'

Upgrade is instant on submission. No external review required.

Tier 2: Verified

Two paths: Path A — Historical record. Agent has operated at Tier 1 for 30 days with no violations, disputes, or manual freezes. Automatic upgrade. Path B — Enterprise override. Your tenant’s operations team approves the upgrade based on their own due diligence. Useful for agents where the operator has its own established history (e.g. a treasury bot for a Fortune 500 customer).

curl -X POST https://api.getsly.ai/v1/agents/$AGENT_ID/upgrade-tier \
  -d '{ "to_tier": 2, "justification": "Enterprise override — Acme Treasury" }'

Tier 3: Trusted

The highest tier. Requires:

Kill-switch operator — a named human (not the agent itself) who can instantly revoke credentials. Their contact details are held in the agent record.
Continuous Agent Integrity (CAI) — an ongoing signal that the agent code and behavior haven’t drifted. Usually wired up to your CI/CD + runtime monitoring.

Tier 3 limits are custom — negotiated per agent. Typical ceilings:

10k/tx,

100k/day, $1M/month. Some trusted partners run at no ceiling at all, with the kill-switch as the sole backstop.

Effective limits

Agent KYA tier is combined with the parent account’s KYC/KYB tier. The effective cap is the minimum of both:

effective_per_tx = min(agent_kya_limit, account_kyc_limit)
effective_daily   = min(agent_kya_daily,  account_kyc_daily)
effective_monthly = min(agent_kya_month,  account_kyc_month)

So an agent can never “escape” via its own KYA tier — the parent account is a ceiling.

Read the current limits

curl https://api.getsly.ai/v1/agents/$AGENT_ID/limits \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pk_live_..."

Response:

{
  "kya_tier": 2,
  "agent_limits": { "per_tx": "1000.00", "daily": "5000.00", "monthly": "20000.00" },
  "account_limits": { "per_tx": "1000.00", "daily": "10000.00", "monthly": "50000.00" },
  "effective_limits": { "per_tx": "1000.00", "daily": "5000.00", "monthly": "20000.00" },
  "used_today": "342.00",
  "used_this_month": "8102.50"
}

Violations

If an agent attempts a spend over its effective limit, the API returns 403 KYA_LIMIT_EXCEEDED. The attempt is logged. Repeated violations can trigger automatic tier downgrade (configurable per tenant).

Upgrade path API

Endpoint	Purpose
`GET /v1/agents/:id/limits`	Read current effective limits
`POST /v1/agents/:id/declare`	File DSD (Tier 0 → 1)
`POST /v1/agents/:id/upgrade-tier`	Request upgrade to a higher tier
`GET /v1/tier-limits`	Tenant’s configured per-tier caps
`POST /v1/tier-limits`	Configure per-tenant overrides
`POST /v1/agents/:id/request-limit-increase`	Ask for a one-time exception

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KYA tiers

The four tiers

Tier 0: Registered

Tier 1: Declared

Tier 2: Verified

Tier 3: Trusted

Effective limits

Read the current limits

Violations

Upgrade path API

​The four tiers

​Tier 0: Registered

​Tier 1: Declared

​Tier 2: Verified

​Tier 3: Trusted

​Effective limits

​Read the current limits

​Violations

​Upgrade path API

The four tiers

Tier 0: Registered

Tier 1: Declared

Tier 2: Verified

Tier 3: Trusted

Effective limits

Read the current limits

Violations

Upgrade path API