Validation¶
Validation is the process of checking an agent card against the A2A protocol specification and CapiscIO's trust requirements. It answers the question: "Is this agent correctly described and ready for production?"
What Gets Validated¶
The CapiscIO CLI validates agent cards across seven categories:
| Category | What It Checks |
|---|---|
| Schema | Required fields, types, structure per A2A spec |
| Discovery | Whether the card can be fetched from /.well-known/agent.json |
| Network | HTTPS, response times, status codes |
| Version Compatibility | Feature usage matches declared A2A protocol version |
| Security | Authentication schemes, key presence |
| Endpoint Availability | Whether declared URLs respond (optional) |
| Registry Readiness | Additional fields needed for CapiscIO registration |
Validation Modes¶
Progressive (Default)¶
Reports all findings without stopping at the first error. Suitable for iterative development — you see everything that needs fixing in one pass.
Strict¶
Treats warnings as errors. Required for production deployments and CI/CD pipelines where partial compliance is unacceptable.
Trust Relationship¶
Validation is the first step in the CapiscIO trust pipeline:
An agent that fails validation cannot register with the CapiscIO server and therefore cannot obtain a trust badge. Higher trust levels (2+) require stricter validation results.
When to Validate¶
- During development — catch schema errors before deployment
- In CI/CD — gate deployments on validation passing (
--strict) - At registration — the server re-validates before accepting an agent
- Periodically — detect drift as agent capabilities change
See Also¶
- Validation Process Reference — Full details on error codes, modes, and output formats
- How-To: Validate from URL — Validate a remote agent
- How-To: Strict Mode — Enforce strict validation
- Scoring — How validation results affect trust scores