Verifiable Usage Accounting for Internet of Agents
draft-zhang-ioa-usage-accounting-00
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| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (individual) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Lianhua Zhang , Wen Qiao , Wei Zhang , Huiling Yang , Yun Li | ||
| Last updated | 2026-05-08 | ||
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draft-zhang-ioa-usage-accounting-00
DMSC L. Zhang
Internet-Draft W. Qiao
Intended status: Informational W. Zhang
Expires: 8 November 2026 H. Yang
Y. Li
AsiaInfo Technologies (China) Inc.
7 May 2026
Verifiable Usage Accounting for Internet of Agents
draft-zhang-ioa-usage-accounting-00
Abstract
This document describes a usage accounting and evidence framework for
the Internet of Agents (IoA). In cross-domain agent collaboration,
agents may attach to gateways, discover capabilities, delegate
subtasks, invoke tools, consume model or compute resources, and
produce auditable outcomes. Existing application logs or platform-
specific billing interfaces are insufficient for interoperable
accounting across agents, gateways, and administrative domains.
This document defines requirements and a common object model for
verifiable usage accounting, including Accounting Contexts, Metering
Profiles, Measurement Dimensions, Usage Event Records, and Accounting
Evidence References. These objects are intended to support
interoperable recording, correlation, export, verification,
correction, and dispute handling for agent collaboration events.
This document does not define pricing, charging policy, token
issuance, financial settlement, revenue-sharing rules, invoices, or
business support system interfaces. It focuses on protocol-visible
accounting records and evidence objects that may be used by other
systems.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 8 November 2026.
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document authors. All rights reserved.
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Conventions and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Scope and Non-Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Architectural Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Accounting Object Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.1. Accounting Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.2. Metering Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2.1. Profile Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.2. Measurement Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.3. Content Recording and Export Behavior . . . . . . . . 12
5.3. Usage Event Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.4. Accounting Evidence Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6. Usage Event Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7. Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.1. Accounting Context Establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.2. Usage Event Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.3. Evidence Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.4. Cross-Domain Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.5. Correction and Dispute Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. Illustrative JSON Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.1. Accounting Context Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.2. Metering Profile Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
8.3. Model Inference Usage Event Record Example . . . . . . . 19
8.4. Usage Event Record Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
9. Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
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10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
11. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
12. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
13. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1. Introduction
The Internet of Agents (IoA) envisions large-scale collaboration
among autonomous or semi-autonomous agents across domains, vendors,
networks, and execution environments. Agents may act on behalf of
users, services, organizations, or other agents. They may also
interact through Agent Gateways, agent-to-agent session protocols,
capability directories, task protocols, tool invocation interfaces,
and model services.
Once agents collaborate across administrative domains, a system needs
a common way to record what occurred during the collaboration. A
task may be decomposed into subtasks, delegated to several agents,
routed through gateways, and completed by invoking models, tools,
data services, or network functions. The resulting usage information
is useful for resource accounting, cost allocation, audit,
operational analysis, quota control, accountability, and dispute
handling.
Existing application logs, local billing records, or platform-
specific usage APIs do not provide a common cross-domain accounting
view. They often lack stable task correlation, gateway provenance,
signed evidence references, usage-category semantics, measurement-
dimension declarations, privacy-controlled export, and correction
semantics. In addition, coarse-grained records such as "API request
count" or "total input/output tokens" do not distinguish between
orchestration, execution, tool invocation, delegated subtasks,
reasoning or inference cost, gateway mediation, and result
verification.
This document defines a protocol-visible object model for verifiable
usage accounting in IoA. It is inspired by existing Internet
accounting and measurement work, including accounting management
concepts [RFC2975], network access accounting [RFC2866], and flow
information export [RFC7011]. However, the objects defined here are
intended for agent collaboration rather than packet flows or network
access sessions.
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The key design principle is separation between accounting facts and
business charging. This document defines usage accounting contexts,
metering profiles, measurement dimensions, event records, and
evidence references. It does not define prices, tariffs, token
economics, revenue sharing, invoices, or financial settlement.
2. Conventions and Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119]
[RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown
here.
Agent
An autonomous or semi-autonomous software entity that can perform
tasks, invoke tools, interact with other agents, or act on behalf
of a user, service, or organization.
Agent Gateway
A gateway that mediates agent attachment, registration, discovery
handoff, policy enforcement, routing, accounting, or
interconnection between agents or domains.
Accounting Context
A scoped object that binds accounting-relevant identifiers,
policies, metering profiles, and evidence requirements for a task,
invocation, session, or gateway-mediated collaboration.
Metering Profile
A description of supported usage categories, measurement
dimensions, aggregation behavior, privacy constraints, and
evidence requirements for a capability, agent, gateway, or
accounting domain.
Measurement Dimension
A declaration of what is measured, which unit is used, the
applicable usage category or modality, and how the value is
obtained and aggregated.
Usage Event Record
A structured record describing an observed accounting-relevant
event, such as task start, delegation, tool invocation, model
inference, workflow step completion, or task result verification.
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Accounting Evidence Reference
A reference to integrity-protected evidence that supports a Usage
Event Record, such as a signature, receipt, hash, authorization
reference, execution trace, result attestation, or human
confirmation record.
Usage Unit
A unit used by a Measurement Dimension to express measured values.
Examples include token, byte, millisecond, second, frame, pixel,
request, operation, step, and standard-compute-unit.
Standard Compute Unit (SCU)
A normalized Usage Unit used by a Measurement Dimension to express
compute resource consumption across heterogeneous models, tools,
or execution environments. This document treats SCU as a profile-
defined unit and does not define its calibration, exchange rate,
or pricing model.
Verified Result Event
A record indicating that a task outcome has been verified
according to a declared policy, such as successful ticket closure,
approved transaction completion, or confirmed network fault
localization.
Accounting Domain
An administrative domain responsible for generating, validating,
exporting, or retaining accounting records.
Exporter
An entity that exports Usage Event Records or accounting summaries
to another entity.
Collector
An entity that receives Usage Event Records or accounting
summaries from an Exporter.
3. Scope and Non-Goals
This document specifies:
* a common object model for verifiable usage accounting in IoA
deployments;
* requirements for Accounting Contexts, Metering Profiles,
Measurement Dimensions, Usage Event Records, and Accounting
Evidence References;
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* usage event categories suitable for task, invocation, delegation,
model, tool, gateway, workflow, and result events;
* requirements for event correlation, evidence binding, cross-domain
export, correction, and dispute handling; and
* privacy and security considerations for accounting records.
This document does not specify:
* pricing, tariffs, rating algorithms, charging policy, invoices,
revenue sharing, token issuance, token exchange, or financial
settlement;
* a general-purpose business support system, online charging system,
payment protocol, or financial ledger;
* a discovery query protocol, routing algorithm, task orchestration
protocol, or agent-to-agent message exchange protocol;
* a complete identity, credential issuance, or trust framework;
* a mandatory serialization format or transport protocol in this
version; or
* a normative definition of SCU calibration, VPT calculation, model
pricing, or business-result valuation.
4. Architectural Context
An IoA deployment may contain Requesting Agents, Serving Agents,
Agent Gateways, Accounting Exporters, Accounting Collectors, and
Evidence Verifiers. The accounting model can be used with gateway-
mediated interaction, direct agent-to-agent interaction, or a
combination of both. A gateway is a common observation and
enforcement point, but the object model does not require every event
to be observed by the same gateway.
The core relationship among the accounting objects is shown in
Figure 1. An Accounting Context defines the scope of accounting for
a task, session, invocation, or collaboration. A Metering Profile
defines how usage is measured and what evidence is required. Usage
Event Records describe individual accounting-relevant events within
that context. Accounting Evidence References bind records to
signatures, hashes, receipts, authorization references, trace
evidence, result attestations, or human confirmations.
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+------------------------------------------------------+
| Accounting Context |
| - task/session/invocation identifiers |
| - accounting domain and observation scope |
| - policy, privacy, and evidence requirements |
+---------------------------+--------------------------+
|
| references
v
+------------------------------------------------------+
| Metering Profile |
| - usage categories and measurement dimensions |
| - aggregation, privacy, and export behavior |
| - required evidence and correction behavior |
+---------------------------+--------------------------+
|
| applies to
v
+------------------------------------------------------+
| Usage Event Records |
| - task, delegation, model, tool, gateway events |
| - usage measurements, result status, sequence |
+---------------------------+--------------------------+
|
| supported by
v
+------------------------------------------------------+
| Accounting Evidence References |
| - signatures, hashes, receipts |
| - authorization, trace, result, confirmation |
+------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 1: Core Accounting Object Relationships
Figure 2 illustrates how these objects are used during a cross-domain
collaboration. The accounting context is normally established before
or during task/session setup. Usage event records are generated as
the collaboration proceeds. Evidence references are attached when
records require later verification. Exporters can then send records
or summaries to collectors according to the Metering Profile and
privacy policy.
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Requesting Agent Gateway A Gateway B Serving Agent
| Exporter Collector |
| | | |
| 1. setup / invocation handoff |
|----------------->|--------------->|------------->|
| | | |
| 2. establish Accounting Context and profile |
|<---------------->|<-------------->|<------------>|
| | | |
| 3. task execution, delegation, model/tool use |
|----------------->|--------------->|------------->|
| | | |
| 4. generate Usage Event Records |
| |<---observe---->| |
| | | |
| 5. bind Evidence References |
| |---sign/hash--->| |
| | | |
| 6. export records or summaries |
| |--------------->| |
| | | |
| 7. correction or dispute evidence, if needed |
| |<-------------->| |
Figure 2: Accounting Flow in Cross-Domain Agent Collaboration
The accounting model is not required to expose agent internals or raw
prompt content. A gateway or platform may generate summary records,
privacy-preserving digests, or evidence references according to local
policy. For example, an exported record can indicate that a result
was verified and signed by a gateway without disclosing the raw
ticket, prompt, tool output, or business data used to make that
determination.
5. Accounting Object Model
5.1. Accounting Context
An Accounting Context defines the scope within which Usage Event
Records are correlated and interpreted. An Accounting Context MAY be
established during agent attachment, capability registration,
discovery handoff, task creation, session establishment, or
invocation setup.
An Accounting Context SHOULD contain the following fields:
* accounting-context-id: a stable identifier for the accounting
context;
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* accounting-domain-id: the domain that asserts or manages the
context;
* gateway-id: the gateway that created or accepted the context, when
applicable;
* agent-id or agent-did: the agent identifier associated with the
context, when available;
* task-id, session-id, invocation-id, or trace-id: identifiers used
for correlation;
* subject-ref: a reference to the user, organization, service, or
agent on whose behalf the task is performed, when policy permits;
* policy-ref: a reference to applicable policy, quota,
authorization, or consent information;
* metering-profile-ref: a reference to the Metering Profile that
applies to the context;
* evidence-policy: requirements for signatures, receipts, retention,
redaction, or result verification;
* validity: start time, expiration time, and freshness constraints;
and
* privacy-scope: constraints on disclosure, aggregation, and export.
An Accounting Context MUST be unambiguous within the accounting
domain that asserts it. If a context is propagated across domains,
each receiving entity MUST be able to determine the asserting entity,
the validity of the context, and the applicable disclosure
constraints.
5.2. Metering Profile
A Metering Profile describes the accounting behavior supported or
required by an agent, capability, gateway, service, or accounting
domain.
A Metering Profile MAY be referenced by a gateway capability
directory entry, capability advertisement, task object, handoff
reference, session setup message, or policy object. If multiple
profiles apply, the effective profile MUST be determined according to
local policy and MUST be auditable.
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5.2.1. Profile Structure
A Metering Profile SHOULD specify:
* profile-id and version;
* supported usage categories;
* supported measurement dimensions, such as token usage, multimodal
generation or processing parameters, latency, gateway routing
attributes, and quota state;
* required measurement methods;
* required evidence types;
* aggregation behavior, such as per-event, per-task, per-session,
per-window, or summary-only;
* correction behavior, such as whether corrected records can be
emitted and how they reference original records;
* privacy behavior, including redaction, pseudonymization,
minimization, and selective disclosure; and
* export behavior, including push, pull, batch, streaming, or local-
only retention.
5.2.2. Measurement Dimensions
A Metering Profile MAY declare one or more measurement dimensions. A
measurement dimension identifies what is measured, the unit used for
the measurement, the applicable modality or usage category, and how
the value is obtained and aggregated. Measurement dimensions provide
a common way to describe text-token usage, model inference usage,
multimodal processing usage, gateway usage, quota state, workflow
usage, and verified-result usage.
A measurement dimension SHOULD contain:
* dimension-id: a stable identifier for the dimension;
* dimension-name: a human-readable name;
* usage-category: the usage category to which the dimension applies;
* modality: text, image, video, audio, speech, multimodal, or
another modality when applicable;
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* unit: the unit of measurement, such as token, byte, millisecond,
second, frame, pixel, request, operation, step, or standard-
compute-unit;
* value-type: integer, decimal, boolean, string, enumeration, or
structured value;
* measurement-method: observed, provider-reported, estimated,
sampled, aggregated, normalized, corrected, or verified;
* aggregation-scope: per-request, per-output, per-inference, per-
tool-call, per-task, per-session, per-time-window, or summary-
only;
* normalization-reference: a reference to a normalization profile
when the dimension uses a normalized unit such as SCU; and
* privacy-class: an indication of whether the dimension is usage-
only metadata, pseudonymous metadata, sensitive metadata, content-
derived metadata, or subject to stricter disclosure policy.
Examples of measurement dimensions include input-token-count, output-
token-count, total-token-count, cached-token-count, reasoning-token-
count, processing-time-ms, request-count, transferred-bytes, quota-
used, quota-limit, image-count, image-pixel-count, image-quality-
level, video-duration-seconds, frame-rate, audio-duration-seconds,
sample-rate, channel-count, tool-call-count, workflow-step-count,
delegation-count, verified-result-count, and standard-compute-usage.
The usage-category of each Measurement Dimension SHOULD be one of the
supported usage categories declared by the Metering Profile, unless
the dimension is explicitly marked as extension-specific.
Reasoning or chain-of-thought resource consumption can be represented
as a measurement dimension, such as reasoning-token-count or
reasoning-compute-duration. This document only accounts for the
resource usage of such reasoning processes; it does not require or
encourage disclosure of chain-of-thought content.
Measurement dimensions are accounting metadata. They do not define a
pricing model, charging rule, tariff, or business valuation method.
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5.2.3. Content Recording and Export Behavior
A Metering Profile SHOULD specify content recording behavior.
Supported behavior can include disabled, digest-only, metadata-only,
excerpt-only, or full-content recording under explicit policy. Full-
content recording MUST NOT be the default behavior for cross-domain
export.
A Metering Profile SHOULD also specify export behavior, including
whether records are retained locally, exported as per-event records,
exported as summaries, exported in batches, streamed to a collector,
or exported only through evidence references. Export behavior MUST
be evaluated together with the privacy behavior and evidence
requirements of the profile.
5.3. Usage Event Record
A Usage Event Record describes an observed accounting-relevant event.
It is not required to contain all raw operational data. It SHOULD
contain enough information to support correlation, aggregation,
verification, correction, and dispute handling.
A Usage Event Record SHOULD contain the following fields:
* record-id: a unique identifier for the record;
* accounting-context-id: the Accounting Context to which the record
belongs;
* event-type: the event type, such as task-start, tool-call, or
task-complete;
* event-time: the time at which the event occurred or was observed;
* observation-point: the gateway, agent, tool adapter, or platform
component that observed the event;
* request-metadata: request identifier, start time, completion time,
client address or pseudonymous client reference, path, method,
consumer reference, API key reference, or equivalent metadata,
subject to privacy policy;
* route-service-info: route name, backend cluster, model identifier,
provider identifier, modality, or service binding reference;
* actor-ref: the agent, gateway, user, or service that performed or
initiated the event, subject to privacy policy;
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* target-ref: the agent, model, tool, service, resource, or task
object affected by the event, subject to privacy policy;
* usage-category: a category such as orchestration, execution, tool-
invocation, model-inference, gateway-forwarding, workflow, or
result-verification;
* usage-measurements: one or more measured values keyed by
measurement dimension identifiers declared in the applicable
Metering Profile;
* quota-state: rate-limit decision, rate-limit status code,
throttling state, or rejection reason when the event is affected
by quota or rate-limit policy;
* content-ref: a reference, digest, redacted excerpt, or policy-
controlled pointer to request or response content when content
recording is enabled;
* result-status: started, in-progress, completed, failed, cancelled,
degraded, corrected, disputed, or verified;
* sequence-info: ordering or deduplication information;
* evidence-ref: one or more Accounting Evidence References; and
* signature or integrity-ref: a signature, MAC, hash, or reference
to integrity protection.
A Usage Event Record that is exported across administrative domains
MUST include enough provenance information for the receiver to
identify the asserting gateway, platform, or accounting domain. The
receiver MUST NOT treat a record as verified solely because it is
syntactically valid.
5.4. Accounting Evidence Reference
An Accounting Evidence Reference links a Usage Event Record to
evidence that supports the record. This document does not require a
particular evidence format. Implementations may use existing
mechanisms such as JOSE [RFC7515], COSE [RFC9052], JWT [RFC7519], CWT
[RFC8392], or selective disclosure mechanisms where appropriate.
An Accounting Evidence Reference SHOULD contain:
* evidence-id;
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* evidence-type: signature, receipt, trace-hash, authorization-ref,
consent-ref, result-attestation, human-confirmation, policy-
decision, downgrade-decision, correction, or dispute-reference;
* evidence-location: embedded, local, URI, digest-only, or
unavailable due to policy;
* digest and digest-algorithm, when evidence is not embedded;
* asserting-entity;
* verification-method;
* validity or retention period; and
* disclosure-policy.
Evidence references MUST NOT require disclosure of raw prompts, tool
results, personal data, or sensitive operational data unless such
disclosure is allowed by policy and necessary for the accounting
purpose.
6. Usage Event Categories
The following initial usage event categories are defined for
interoperability. Future specifications may extend this list.
orchestration
Usage associated with intent interpretation, planning, task
decomposition, routing decisions, state management, or
coordination prompts.
execution
Usage associated with an agent or sub-agent performing a concrete
task step.
tool-invocation
Usage associated with invoking an external tool, function, API,
database, network function, or resource server.
model-inference
Usage associated with model invocation, including input units,
output units, reasoning units, compute duration, or normalized
compute units.
multimodal-processing
Usage associated with image, video, audio, speech, or other non-
text modality generation or processing.
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quota-control
Usage or decision events associated with quota consumption, rate-
limit checks, throttling, or rejection.
gateway-forwarding
Usage associated with gateway mediation, forwarding, policy
checks, protocol translation, or cross-domain handoff.
workflow
Usage associated with workflow steps, task-state changes, retries,
cancellation, fallback, pause, resume, or escalation.
result-verification
Usage associated with verification of task results, human
confirmation, external validation, or business-outcome
confirmation.
correction
A record that corrects or supersedes a previous record.
dispute
A record that indicates an accounting dispute, dispute evidence
submission, or dispute resolution status.
These categories describe accounting semantics and do not imply any
particular pricing or charging rule.
7. Procedures
7.1. Accounting Context Establishment
An Accounting Context MAY be established when an agent attaches to a
gateway, a gateway accepts or creates a capability directory entry, a
task is created or accepted, an invocation handoff is returned, a
session or collaboration group is established, or a policy decision
requires accounting or audit.
The entity establishing the context MUST determine the applicable
Metering Profile and evidence policy before usage events are exported
across administrative domains. If no compatible profile exists, the
gateway or platform MAY reject the interaction, fall back to local-
only accounting, or export only a minimal summary according to
policy.
Accounting Context establishment SHOULD be bound to authentication
and authorization decisions where available. An accounting context
MUST NOT be used as proof of authorization unless it explicitly
references verifiable authorization evidence.
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7.2. Usage Event Generation
A gateway or platform component SHOULD generate a Usage Event Record
when an accounting-relevant event is observed. The granularity of
event generation depends on the Metering Profile.
Implementations SHOULD support at least task-start and task-complete
or task-failed records, delegation records, tool-invocation records,
model-inference or compute-usage records, and correction records.
A Usage Event Record MUST include ordering or deduplication
information if it can be retransmitted, corrected, or exported
through multiple gateways or platforms.
7.3. Evidence Binding
A Usage Event Record SHOULD be bound to evidence according to the
applicable evidence policy. Evidence binding MAY be achieved by
embedding evidence, including a digest, including a URI, or
referencing a protected evidence store.
Evidence binding SHOULD support integrity verification of the record,
provenance verification of the asserting gateway or domain,
correlation with authorization, consent, policy, or task context,
result verification when a record asserts a verified outcome, and
later dispute handling without exposing more data than necessary.
If evidence is unavailable due to privacy, retention, or policy
constraints, the record MUST indicate that evidence is unavailable
and SHOULD include the reason class.
7.4. Cross-Domain Export
Gateways or platforms MAY export Usage Event Records or summaries to
other gateways, platforms, or collectors. Export behavior MUST
follow the Metering Profile and privacy-scope constraints associated
with the Accounting Context.
Cross-domain export SHOULD support record authentication and
integrity protection, replay protection, duplicate detection, batch
and streaming export models, summary export when raw event export is
not allowed, correction records, and receiver-side validation of
provenance and freshness.
A receiving entity MUST apply local policy before accepting exported
accounting data for operational decisions. A receiving entity SHOULD
retain the source identifier, received time, verification status, and
any transformation performed on the record.
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7.5. Correction and Dispute Handling
Accounting records may require correction because of delayed events,
clock skew, aggregation errors, task cancellation, gateway failures,
or later result verification.
A correction record MUST reference the original record or record set
that it corrects. It MUST indicate whether it replaces, amends,
reverses, or annotates the original record.
A dispute record SHOULD reference the disputed records, the
accounting context, the asserting entity, the dispute reason,
evidence references submitted by the disputing entity, and the
dispute status.
This document defines only protocol-visible dispute references and
evidence objects. It does not define arbitration rules, legal
process, liability, compensation, or financial settlement.
8. Illustrative JSON Objects
The following examples are illustrative and are not a normative
serialization profile.
8.1. Accounting Context Example
{
"accounting_context_id": "acctx-20260507-001",
"accounting_domain_id": "example.net",
"gateway_id": "agw-east-1",
"task_id": "task-5gc-fault-1192",
"session_id": "sess-71d1",
"trace_id": "trace-88b7",
"policy_ref": "policy://example.net/ioa/accounting/basic",
"metering_profile_ref": "profile://example.net/scu-v1",
"evidence_policy": {
"signature_required": true,
"result_evidence_required": true,
"raw_prompt_export": false
},
"validity": {
"not_before": "2026-05-07T06:00:00Z",
"not_after": "2026-05-07T12:00:00Z"
}
}
Figure 3
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8.2. Metering Profile Example
{
"profile_id": "profile://example.net/scu-v1",
"version": "1.0",
"supported_usage_categories": [
"tool-invocation",
"model-inference",
"multimodal-processing"
],
"measurement_dimensions": [
{
"dimension_id": "input-token-count",
"usage_category": "model-inference",
"modality": "text",
"unit": "token",
"value_type": "integer",
"measurement_method": "provider-reported",
"aggregation_scope": "per-inference",
"privacy_class": "usage-only"
},
{
"dimension_id": "output-token-count",
"usage_category": "model-inference",
"modality": "text",
"unit": "token",
"value_type": "integer",
"measurement_method": "provider-reported",
"aggregation_scope": "per-inference",
"privacy_class": "usage-only"
},
{
"dimension_id": "standard-compute-usage",
"usage_category": "tool-invocation",
"unit": "standard-compute-unit",
"value_type": "decimal",
"measurement_method": "observed",
"aggregation_scope": "per-tool-call",
"privacy_class": "usage-only"
},
{
"dimension_id": "reasoning-token-count",
"usage_category": "model-inference",
"modality": "text",
"unit": "token",
"value_type": "integer",
"measurement_method": "provider-reported",
"aggregation_scope": "per-inference",
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"privacy_class": "usage-only"
},
{
"dimension_id": "total-token-count",
"usage_category": "model-inference",
"modality": "text",
"unit": "token",
"value_type": "integer",
"measurement_method": "derived",
"aggregation_scope": "per-inference",
"privacy_class": "usage-only"
},
{
"dimension_id": "processing-time-ms",
"usage_category": "tool-invocation",
"unit": "millisecond",
"value_type": "integer",
"measurement_method": "observed",
"aggregation_scope": "per-tool-call",
"privacy_class": "usage-only"
}
]
}
Figure 4
8.3. Model Inference Usage Event Record Example
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{
"record_id": "uer-20260507-0038",
"accounting_context_id": "acctx-20260507-001",
"event_type": "model-inference",
"event_time": "2026-05-07T06:12:45Z",
"observation_point": "agw-east-1",
"actor_ref": "agent:core-network-diagnosis",
"target_ref": "model:diagnosis-llm-v1",
"usage_category": "model-inference",
"usage_measurements": {
"input-token-count": 1832,
"output-token-count": 412,
"reasoning-token-count": 960,
"total-token-count": 3204
},
"result_status": "completed",
"sequence_info": {
"sequence": 38,
"previous_record_hash": "sha256-..."
},
"evidence_ref": [
{
"evidence_id": "ev-0038",
"evidence_type": "receipt",
"digest_algorithm": "sha-256",
"digest": "..."
}
]
}
Figure 5
8.4. Usage Event Record Example
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{
"record_id": "uer-20260507-0037",
"accounting_context_id": "acctx-20260507-001",
"event_type": "tool-call",
"event_time": "2026-05-07T06:12:43Z",
"observation_point": "agw-east-1",
"actor_ref": "agent:core-network-diagnosis",
"target_ref": "tool:amf-log-analysis",
"usage_category": "tool-invocation",
"usage_measurements": {
"standard-compute-usage": 1200,
"processing-time-ms": 1840
},
"result_status": "completed",
"sequence_info": {
"sequence": 37,
"previous_record_hash": "sha256-..."
},
"evidence_ref": [
{
"evidence_id": "ev-0037",
"evidence_type": "trace-hash",
"digest_algorithm": "sha-256",
"digest": "..."
}
]
}
Figure 6
9. Privacy Considerations
Usage accounting records can reveal sensitive information about
users, organizations, agents, tasks, capabilities, tools, business
workflows, network operations, and resource consumption.
Implementations MUST minimize disclosure according to the accounting
purpose.
Accounting records exported across domains SHOULD avoid raw prompts,
raw tool outputs, personal data, confidential business data, and
detailed operational logs unless explicitly authorized and necessary.
Privacy-preserving summaries, pseudonymous identifiers, redaction,
selective disclosure, and digest-only evidence references SHOULD be
used where possible.
A Metering Profile SHOULD state whether records are event-level,
aggregated, sampled, or summary-only. It SHOULD also state retention
expectations and disclosure constraints.
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The ability to correlate records across gateways or sessions can
improve audit and dispute handling, but it can also enable tracking.
Accounting Context identifiers and trace identifiers SHOULD be
scoped, rotated, or pseudonymized according to policy.
10. Security Considerations
Accounting records may influence quota decisions, audit findings,
operational analysis, and downstream business systems. Attackers may
attempt to forge, modify, replay, suppress, duplicate, delay, or
selectively disclose records.
Implementations SHOULD provide integrity protection, source
authentication, replay protection, freshness validation, and
duplicate detection for exported records. Existing mechanisms such
as TLS [RFC8446], JOSE [RFC7515], COSE [RFC9052], JWT [RFC7519], and
CWT [RFC8392] may be used as appropriate.
A receiving entity MUST NOT treat a Usage Event Record as trustworthy
only because it is syntactically valid. The receiving entity SHOULD
validate the asserting domain, signature status, freshness, evidence
references, and applicable policy.
Records that contain usage values may be manipulated to inflate,
suppress, or shift apparent usage. Implementations SHOULD support
correction records, evidence references, and audit trails for changes
to accounting state.
Result-verification records are especially sensitive because they may
assert that a task outcome occurred. Such records SHOULD be bound to
evidence, policy, and verification method. If human confirmation is
used, the record SHOULD indicate the confirmation reference without
exposing unnecessary personal data.
Accounting data loss can affect auditability. Implementations SHOULD
consider reliable export, local buffering, non-volatile storage,
acknowledgements, or retransmission where archival accounting is
required by deployment policy.
11. IANA Considerations
This document requests no IANA actions in this version.
Future versions may request creation of registries for IoA Usage
Event Types, IoA Usage Categories, IoA Measurement Dimensions, IoA
Usage Units, IoA Measurement Methods, IoA Accounting Evidence Types,
and IoA Accounting Result Status Values.
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12. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
13. Informative References
[RFC2866] Rigney, C., "RADIUS Accounting", RFC 2866,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2866, June 2000,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2866>.
[RFC2975] Aboba, B., Arkko, J., and D. Harrington, "Introduction to
Accounting Management", RFC 2975, DOI 10.17487/RFC2975,
October 2000, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2975>.
[RFC7011] Claise, B., Ed., Trammell, B., Ed., and P. Aitken,
"Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX)
Protocol for the Exchange of Flow Information", STD 77,
RFC 7011, DOI 10.17487/RFC7011, September 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7011>.
[RFC7515] Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "JSON Web
Signature (JWS)", RFC 7515, DOI 10.17487/RFC7515, May
2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7515>.
[RFC7519] Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "JSON Web Token
(JWT)", RFC 7519, DOI 10.17487/RFC7519, May 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7519>.
[RFC8392] Jones, M., Wahlstroem, E., Erdtman, S., and H. Tschofenig,
"CBOR Web Token (CWT)", RFC 8392, DOI 10.17487/RFC8392,
May 2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8392>.
[RFC8446] Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8446>.
[RFC9052] Schaad, J., "CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE):
Structures and Process", STD 96, RFC 9052,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9052, August 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9052>.
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Authors' Addresses
Lianhua Zhang
AsiaInfo Technologies (China) Inc.
Beijing
100000
China
Email: zhanglh2@asiainfo.com
Wen Qiao
AsiaInfo Technologies (China) Inc.
Beijing
100000
China
Email: qiaowen@asiainfo.com
Wei Zhang
AsiaInfo Technologies (China) Inc.
Beijing
100000
China
Email: zhangwei41@asiainfo.com
Huiling Yang
AsiaInfo Technologies (China) Inc.
Beijing
100000
China
Email: yanghl10@asiainfo.com
Yun Li
AsiaInfo Technologies (China) Inc.
Beijing
100000
China
Email: liyun9@asiainfo.com
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