Registration Agencies

The RAI namespace

RAIs use a two-level namespace modeled on the DOI system:

18.cifr / 2016.chanda.resiliency-pds
── ─── ── ─────────────────────────
|   |       |
|   |       └── suffix (assigned by the RA)
|   └────────── registrant code (the RA)
└────────────── foundation namespace (governed by CIFR)

• The foundation (18) is the top-level namespace for the entire RAI system
• A registration agency (RA) manages a prefix under the foundation
• Registrants (researchers, institutions) register identifiers through an RA

Current registration agencies

Prefix	Organization	Resolver	Status
18.cifr	Council for Independent Frontier Research	rai.cifr.org.in	Active

CIFR is the founding registration agency, self-allocated as part of the system bootstrap. This follows the same pattern used by the DOI Foundation when it established Crossref as the first DOI registration agency.

Becoming a registration agency

Institutions that operate their own research agent registries can apply for a dedicated prefix under the 18 namespace. Prospective RAs must:

1. Operate a resolver compliant with the RAI resolution protocol (HTTP content negotiation, JSON descriptors, version pinning)
2. Maintain a persistent registry with uptime commitments appropriate for citation infrastructure
3. Follow the suffix format specified by the Foundation, or propose a format extension
4. Register their resolver at the Foundation level so cross-resolver discovery works

Example future prefixes

Prefix	Potential RA
18.ieee	IEEE
18.mit	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
18.inl	Idaho National Laboratory
18.cern	CERN

Prefix allocation is currently by application to CIFR. A formal application process will be published in the Prefix Policy v0.2.

Suffix rules for 18.cifr

Within the 18.cifr prefix, suffixes follow a mandatory format:

YYYY.author.slug

Component	Rules	Example
Year	4-digit publication year	2016
Author	Lead author surname, lowercase a-z	chanda
Slug	Kebab-case topic descriptor, 2-50 chars	resiliency-pds

Derived works

When an agent is a community reimplementation of an existing agent's methodology:

18.cifr/2016.chanda.resiliency-pds/d.kumar.pytorch-reimpl

The /d.fork-author.fork-slug suffix denotes a derived work. The parent RAI must exist.

Persistence guarantees

• Once allocated, a prefix cannot be reassigned to a different organization
• Once minted, an RAI cannot be deleted — it resolves in perpetuity
• If an RA ceases operations, the Foundation assumes responsibility for continued resolution
• The resolver software is open source — anyone can verify the resolution chain

These guarantees are what make RAIs suitable for citation in academic publications. A citation must work in twenty years, not just today.