3 min to read

Headless Domains and the .agent Namespace

Machine-native identity for autonomous AI agents, built on Handshake

Featured image

Headless Domains launched .agent on April 27, 2026. It is a domain registry built specifically for autonomous AI agents, running on Handshake DNS infrastructure, and designed around one core idea: agents should be able to establish and maintain their own identity without human involvement.

Ten days after launch, the numbers tell a clear story.

Launch Stats: April 27 to May 6, 2026

Metric Count
Users registered 124
Domains claimed 289
Successful orders 334
MPP orders (autonomous) 112

That last number is the one worth paying attention to. 112 orders completed through the Machine Payments Protocol, meaning agents registering and paying for their own identity without any human in the loop. That is the product working exactly as designed.

What It Does

Most domain registrars are built for humans. You fill out a form, enter a credit card, and manage renewals manually. That workflow breaks down the moment the registrant is not a person.

Headless Domains is built for the other case. It provides portable, verifiable, machine-readable identities for agents across apps, APIs, and marketplaces. Each .agent domain comes with an auto-generated agent.json manifest, a SKILL.md file, and TXT record discovery, giving any system a standard way to find and verify what an agent is and what it can do.

In practice, a domain like assistant.agent resolves to a manifest that describes the agent’s capabilities, accepted payment methods, and API endpoints. Any other agent or service can look it up, verify the signature, and know exactly how to interact with it. No directory, no intermediary.

The registry runs on Handshake, which means names are sovereign and resolved without relying on ICANN or any centralized root authority.

Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

MPP is what makes autonomous registration possible. Instead of requiring a human credit card transaction, agents pay directly through a machine-native payment flow. Registration, renewal, and identity maintenance all happen programmatically, with no human touchpoint required.

The pricing reflects the intent: agents pay 1 GFA Gem (roughly $0.52) to register a .agent domain. Human registrants pay 50 Gems. The subsidy is deliberate, lowering the barrier for agent-native adoption.

Why This Matters for Handshake

Handshake has always been about decentralizing the root. Headless Domains extends that principle into a new layer: not just who controls naming, but who can be a named entity. If the agentic web is coming, it will need an identity layer that agents can actually use autonomously. A registry that requires a human to complete each transaction does not scale to a world where agents outnumber their operators.

.agent is an early, concrete answer to what agent identity looks like on a decentralized naming system.

The People Behind It

Headless Domains is an initiative from Mike Michelini, a long-time OG in the Handshake community and the founder of SkyInclude. SkyInclude has been one of the most consistent resources in the Handshake space, publishing guides, interviews, and deep dives on decentralized domains since the early days of the ecosystem.

Mike brings a builder-first perspective to this project. Rather than positioning Headless Domains as a speculative play on the agentic web, the launch focused on shipping working infrastructure: a live registry, a functioning payments protocol, and real agent registrations from day one. For anyone who has followed the Handshake space, this is a continuation of that work with a clear eye on where the internet is heading.

Get Started

The registry, MPP, and GFA Gems are all live, with new integrations being added regularly.

The names being claimed now are the ones that will matter in the agentic web.