Consensus for Machines

Some decisions shouldn't be made by a single agent. Spending treasury funds. Updating shared parameters. Responding to detected anomalies.

These require agreement across multiple agents. Consensus.

Why Consensus Matters

Autonomous agents with real resources need ways to reach agreement. Not just communication—actual consensus with Byzantine fault tolerance.

Most agent frameworks punt on this entirely. They assume a single operator or trusted coordinator. But distributed swarms have no such luxury.

The Consensus Challenge

Consensus is hard. Byzantine fault tolerance is harder. Agents might be adversarial. Networks might partition. Messages might be delayed or reordered.

Traditional consensus algorithms (Raft, PBFT) assume trusted participants. Agent swarms need consensus that works in adversarial environments.

The Solution: Arbiter

Arbiter provides consensus infrastructure for agents. Leader election. Distributed locks. Commit-reveal voting. All with Byzantine fault tolerance.

Agents can reach agreement without central authority. Consensus becomes infrastructure.

---

Part of the EchoRift infrastructure series.