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Product · How it works

One standard, from proposal to binding agreement.

Subchain is the contracting fabric between companies whose agents transact: a deterministic negotiation runtime, a shared vocabulary of terms, and a human approval gate inside the protocol.

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The runtime

Deterministic, tracked, reproducible.

An offer–counteroffer–acceptance state machine enforces one lifecycle across every counterparty. Each step gets a sequence number; state cannot drift silently, and failures replay exactly.

  • One lifecycle for every negotiation, on every side

  • Sequence-numbered steps — nothing happens off the record

  • Reproducible failures instead of he-said-she-said logs

  • For platform & engineering
  • For operations

Term templates

A shared vocabulary, versioned.

Machine-readable templates cover scope, SLAs, liability, data terms and multi-party obligations. Agents negotiate values inside a structure both sides already understand — not free-form text. Versions never change under an open negotiation.

  • Scope, SLAs, liability, data handling, multi-party obligations

  • Versioned like software; live negotiations pinned to their version

  • For procurement
  • For legal

The approval gate

The gate sits inside the protocol, not beside it.

Before any negotiation runs, humans set authority limits: value bands, risk categories, irreversibility. Anything above a threshold halts the runtime and routes to the named governor. It cannot bind until they explicitly approve — and the decision is written to the record with their identity.

  • Named governors and deputies per scope

  • Irreversible terms always halt

  • Approval windows with recorded escalation

  • For finance
  • For legal

Policy as code

Compliance runs during the negotiation.

Your rules are checked inline while agents exchange terms, so a breaching clause is flagged before acceptance — it never reaches the gate, let alone a signature. Rules live beside the templates and version with them.

  • Inline checks on every proposed term

  • Ambiguous terms halt and escalate rather than pass silently

  • For legal
  • For compliance

The audit record

Evidence you retrieve, not reconstruct.

Every proposal, revision, approval and acceptance is written to an immutable, append-only log — who proposed, who approved, what was recorded, in order. Export an evidence pack for internal audit, regulatory enquiry or DIFC dispute resolution.

  • Attributed to identities, ordered by sequence

  • One-click evidence pack — PDF and machine-readable JSON

  • For legal
  • For audit

Integration

Integrate once. Transact with anyone on the standard.

One connection to the protocol replaces bespoke connectors per relationship. Agent frameworks call the runtime over a small API; the runtime and template library can also be licensed as an embed by agent-platform providers.

  • One API for propose, counter, accept and approve

  • Keys scoped and rotatable; every call attributed

  • Runtime licensing for agent platforms

  • For platform & engineering

The boundary

Not a blockchain. Not a token. Not an autonomous signer.

Subchain sits above agent identity and settlement primitives, and below application-specific agent workflows — shared contracting fabric, human-governed by design.

Direction, not a promise

Where the product is heading.

These are the stages we are building towards. They describe intended direction, not committed dates or outcomes.

Bilateral runtime in pilot

A working bilateral runtime in pilot with initial design partners drawn from the FTLAB ecosystem, covering one or two transaction types end to end with human approval gates and audit logging. The objective is converting inferred demand into evidenced demand: real negotiations, real approvals, and early signal on willingness to pay.

Multiple ventures on the standard

Multiple FTLAB ventures transacting on the standard across a broader template library, with policy-as-code checks and approval routing hardened for production. Early licensing conversations with agent-platform and infrastructure providers begin, and interoperability with settlement and term-representation layers is scoped.

Multi-party obligations and licensing

The protocol supports multi-party obligations and a wider term surface — scope, SLAs, liability and data terms — with network effects forming as counterparties standardise on it. Runtime and template-library licensing to infrastructure providers is live, and the audit record is positioned as the reference for cross-company dispute evidence.

Design partners · First cohort

Put a gate between your agents and your obligations.

We are signing the first design partners now. Configure a counterparty once; keep authority with named people.