# Agent Contracts: A Formal Framework for Resource-Bounded Autonomous AI Systems

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.08815 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.08815/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 Jan 2026.

## Built on by (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Agent Behavioral Contracts: Formal Specification and Runtime Enforcement for Reliable Autonomous AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.22302/) (2026)
- [Right to History: A Sovereignty Kernel for Verifiable AI Agent Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.20214/) (2026)
- [Token Budgets: An Empirical Catalog of 63 LLM-Agent Budget-Overrun Incidents, with an Affine-Typed Rust Mitigation as a Case Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.04056/) (2026)
- [One Gate Is Not Enough: Composing Stateful Pre-Action Controls for Agentic AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.18360/) (2026)
- [Retrieval-Conditioned Topology Selection with Provable Budget Conservation for Multi-Agent Code Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.05657/) (2026)
- [Making AI Scientists Auditable from Evidence to Claim](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.18874/) (2026)
- [Behavioral Governance for Autonomous AI Agents: The AgentBound Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.30970/) (2026)
- [Spawn Freely, Act Sparingly: Progressive Risk Vesting for Recursive LLM-Agent Trees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.01035/) (2026)
- [Minimal Oversight: Uncertainty-Aware Governance for Delegated AI Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.15563/) (2026)
- [SkillEffect: Checked Lowering for Memory-Bounded Agent Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.17007/) (2026)
- [AgentBetta: Verification-Driven Adaptive Configuration of an AI Nano-Agent through Selective Expansion and Verified Contraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.23512/) (2026)
- [Persistent Billable State: Denial-of-Wallet Attacks and Defenses in Tool-Calling LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.28585/) (2026)
- [Authorization for Self-Modifying AI Agent Populations: Conserving Authority across Replacement, Forking, and Rollback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.00347/) (2026)
- [Fault-Tolerant Budget Conservation in Distributed Multi-Agent Delegation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.00349/) (2026)
- [Pollard: Governed Semantic Execution Trees for Framework-Independent AI Agent Control and Replay](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16145/) (2026)
- [Agency as a New Organizing Abstraction for Computer Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17410/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The Contract Net Protocol (1980) introduced coordination through contracts in multi-agent systems. Modern agent protocols standardize connectivity and interoperability; yet, none provide formal, resource governance-normative mechanisms to bound how much agents may consume or how long they may operate. We introduce Agent Contracts, a formal framework that extends the contract metaphor from task allocation to resource-bounded execution. An Agent Contract unifies input/output specifications, multi-dimensional resource constraints, temporal boundaries, and success criteria into a coherent governance mechanism with explicit lifecycle semantics. For multi-agent coordination, we establish conservation laws ensuring delegated budgets respect parent constraints, enabling hierarchical coordination through contract delegation. Empirical validation across four experiments demonstrates 90% token reduction with 525x lower variance in iterative workflows, zero conservation violations in multi-agent delegation, and measurable quality-resource tradeoffs through contract modes. Agent Contracts provide formal foundations for predictable, auditable, and resource-bounded autonomous AI deployment.