sign-requests

name	sign-requests
description	How to sign HTTP requests with Self Agent ID's 3-header authentication system. Covers ECDSA and Ed25519 signing, the signing algorithm, MCP tools (self_sign_request, self_authenticated_fetch), SDK usage in TypeScript/Python/Rust, and replay protection. Use when the user asks to "sign a request", "authenticate as agent", "agent auth headers", "self agent fetch", "signed HTTP request", "ed25519 signing", or "make authenticated call".
license	MIT
metadata	{"author":"Self Protocol","version":"1.0.0","mcp-server":"self-agent-id"}

Sign Requests

The 3-Header Authentication System

Every authenticated HTTP request from a Self Agent carries exactly three headers. These headers together form a tamper-proof, replay-resistant authentication envelope:

Header	Content	Format
x-self-agent-address	Agent's Ethereum address	EIP-55 checksummed hex (e.g., 0xf39Fd6e51aad88F6F4ce6aB8827279cffFb92266)
x-self-agent-signature	ECDSA signature over the request	Hex-encoded, 0x-prefixed, 65 bytes (r + s + v)
x-self-agent-timestamp	Unix timestamp in milliseconds	String (e.g., "1708704000000")

The address header is informational only. The receiving service recovers the signer address from the signature and compares it to the header value. This ensures the address cannot be spoofed — a valid signature can only be produced by the holder of the corresponding private key.

Signing Algorithm

The signing algorithm is identical across all three SDKs (TypeScript, Python, Rust) and the MCP server. The steps are:

1. Compute the body hash. Take the request body as a UTF-8 string. If there is no body (e.g., GET requests), use an empty string. Hash it with Keccak-256. The result is a hex string with 0x prefix.

   bodyHash = keccak256(body || "")
   

2. Canonicalize the URL. Extract only the path and query string from the full URL. The scheme and host are stripped. Examples:

   • https://api.example.com/api/data?page=1 becomes /api/data?page=1
   • /api/data stays as /api/data
   • https://example.com/ becomes /

3. Build the signing message. Concatenate four components as a single UTF-8 string, then hash with Keccak-256:

   message = keccak256(timestamp + method.toUpperCase() + pathWithQuery + bodyHash)
   

   Where timestamp is the millisecond Unix timestamp as a string, method is uppercase (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE), pathWithQuery is the canonicalized URL from step 2, and bodyHash is the hex string from step 1 (including the 0x prefix).

4. Sign with EIP-191 personal_sign. Apply EIP-191 personal message signing over the raw 32-byte hash from step 3. This prepends the standard \x19Ethereum Signed Message:\n32 prefix before signing with the agent's ECDSA private key.

5. Assemble headers. Return the three headers: the agent's checksummed address, the hex-encoded signature, and the timestamp string.

Worked Example

For a POST request to https://api.example.com/data with body {"key":"value"}:

timestamp     = "1708704000000"
method        = "POST"
pathWithQuery = "/data"
bodyHash      = keccak256('{"key":"value"}')  // 0x...64 hex chars
concat        = "1708704000000POST/data0x..."
message       = keccak256(concat)              // 32 bytes
signature     = personal_sign(message, privateKey)

Using MCP Tools

The MCP server provides two tools for request signing. Both require SELF_AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY to be configured as an environment variable in the MCP server.

self_sign_request

Generate authentication headers to attach manually.

Input:

• method (required): HTTP method — GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE
• url (required): Full URL including scheme and host (e.g., https://api.example.com/data?page=1)
• body (optional): Request body as a JSON string

Output:

{
  "headers": {
    "x-self-agent-address": "0xf39Fd6e51aad88F6F4ce6aB8827279cffFb92266",
    "x-self-agent-signature": "0x...",
    "x-self-agent-timestamp": "1708704000000"
  },
  "instructions": "Attach these headers to your HTTP request."
}

Use this tool when building a request manually or when needing to inspect the headers before sending. Attach all three headers to the outbound request exactly as returned.

self_authenticated_fetch

Have the MCP server perform the full signed HTTP request.

Input:

• method (required): HTTP method — GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE
• url (required): Full URL
• body (optional): Request body as a JSON string
• content_type (optional): Content-Type header, defaults to application/json

Output:

{
  "status": 200,
  "body": "{\"result\":\"success\"}",
  "truncated": false
}

The response body is capped at 10 KB. If the response exceeds this limit, the truncated flag is set to true. Use this tool for simple request-response flows where inspecting headers is not necessary.

Using SDK (TypeScript)

import { SelfAgent } from "@selfxyz/agent-sdk";

const agent = new SelfAgent({ privateKey: process.env.AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY! });

// Option 1: Get headers manually
const headers = await agent.signRequest(
  "POST",
  "https://api.example.com/protected",
  JSON.stringify({ data: "value" }),
);
// headers = {
//   "x-self-agent-address": "0x...",
//   "x-self-agent-signature": "0x...",
//   "x-self-agent-timestamp": "1708704000000"
// }

// Attach to any HTTP client
const response = await fetch("https://api.example.com/protected", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    ...headers,
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({ data: "value" }),
});

// Option 2: Signed fetch (recommended)
// Wraps global fetch() and auto-attaches all 3 headers.
const res = await agent.fetch("https://api.example.com/protected", {
  method: "POST",
  body: JSON.stringify({ data: "value" }),
});

console.log(res.status, await res.json());

The signRequest() method accepts the HTTP method as a string, the full URL (or just the path), and optionally the body as a string. It returns a plain object with the three header key-value pairs. The fetch() method is a drop-in wrapper around the global fetch() that automatically signs each request before sending.

Python SDK

import os
from self_agent_sdk import SelfAgent

agent = SelfAgent(private_key=os.environ["AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY"])

# Option 1: Get headers manually
headers = agent.sign_request(
    method="POST",
    url="https://api.example.com/protected",
    body='{"data":"value"}'
)
# headers = {
#     "x-self-agent-address": "0x...",
#     "x-self-agent-signature": "0x...",
#     "x-self-agent-timestamp": "1708704000000"
# }

# Use with any HTTP library (requests, httpx, aiohttp)
import httpx
response = httpx.post(
    "https://api.example.com/protected",
    headers={**headers, "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    content='{"data":"value"}'
)

# Option 2: Signed fetch (recommended)
# Uses httpx internally, auto-attaches all 3 headers.
response = agent.fetch(
    "https://api.example.com/protected",
    method="POST",
    body='{"data":"value"}'
)

print(response.status_code, response.json())

The Python SDK's sign_request() returns a dict[str, str]. The fetch() method returns an httpx.Response with the authentication headers already attached.

Rust SDK

use self_agent_sdk::{SelfAgent, SelfAgentConfig};
use reqwest::Method;

let agent = SelfAgent::new(SelfAgentConfig {
    private_key: std::env::var("AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY").unwrap(),
    network: None,       // defaults to mainnet
    registry_address: None,
    rpc_url: None,
})?;

// Option 1: Get headers manually
let headers = agent.sign_request(
    "POST",
    "https://api.example.com/protected",
    Some(r#"{"data":"value"}"#),
).await?;
// headers: HashMap<String, String> with the 3 auth headers

// Use with reqwest or any HTTP client
let client = reqwest::Client::new();
let mut request = client.post("https://api.example.com/protected")
    .header("content-type", "application/json")
    .body(r#"{"data":"value"}"#.to_string());
for (k, v) in &headers {
    request = request.header(k.as_str(), v.as_str());
}
let response = request.send().await?;

// Option 2: Signed fetch (recommended)
let response = agent.fetch(
    "https://api.example.com/protected",
    Some(Method::POST),
    Some(r#"{"data":"value"}"#.to_string()),
).await?;

println!("{} {}", response.status(), response.text().await?);

The Rust SDK's sign_request() returns a HashMap<String, String>. The fetch() method returns a reqwest::Response with headers already attached.

Replay Protection

The timestamp-based replay protection works as follows:

• Timestamp freshness. Services should reject requests with timestamps older than a configurable window. The default window is 5 minutes (300,000 milliseconds). The SDK's SelfAgentVerifier checks timestamp freshness automatically as the first step in verification.

• Request binding. Each signature is cryptographically bound to the exact tuple of (timestamp, method, path, body). Changing any single component invalidates the signature. This means a captured signature for POST /api/data with body {"x":1} cannot be replayed against POST /api/data with body {"x":2}, or against GET /api/data, or against a different path.

• Millisecond precision. Timestamps use millisecond precision (not seconds) to reduce the collision window for concurrent requests from the same agent.

• No nonce required. The combination of millisecond timestamps and per-request body binding makes explicit nonce tracking unnecessary for most use cases. For high-security scenarios requiring strict at-most-once delivery, services can additionally track seen (address, timestamp, signature) tuples within the freshness window.

Ed25519 Signing

All three SDKs also provide an Ed25519Agent class for Ed25519-based signing. The API is identical to SelfAgent, but uses Ed25519 keys instead of ECDSA (secp256k1).

TypeScript

import { Ed25519Agent } from "@selfxyz/agent-sdk";

const agent = new Ed25519Agent({ privateKey: process.env.AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY! });

// Same API as SelfAgent
const headers = await agent.signRequest("POST", url, body);
const response = await agent.fetch(url, { method: "POST", body });

Python

from self_agent_sdk import Ed25519Agent

agent = Ed25519Agent(private_key=os.environ["AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY"])
headers = agent.sign_request("POST", url, body)
response = agent.fetch(url, method="POST", body=body)

Rust

use self_agent_sdk::Ed25519Agent;

let agent = Ed25519Agent::new(std::env::var("AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY").unwrap())?;
let headers = agent.sign_request("POST", url, Some(body)).await?;

Ed25519 agents include an additional header x-self-agent-keytype: "ed25519" and use x-self-agent-key (public key) instead of x-self-agent-address. The SelfAgentVerifier handles both key types transparently — no server-side changes needed.

Common Patterns

Conditional signing based on registration status

Before making signed requests, verify the agent is registered:

const agent = new SelfAgent({ privateKey: process.env.AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY! });

if (await agent.isRegistered()) {
  const response = await agent.fetch("https://api.example.com/protected");
  // handle response
} else {
  console.error(
    "Agent not registered — register first before making signed requests",
  );
}

Attaching additional headers

Merge the auth headers with application-specific headers:

const authHeaders = await agent.signRequest("POST", url, body);
const response = await fetch(url, {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    Authorization: "Bearer app-token", // application-level auth
    ...authHeaders, // agent identity headers
  },
  body,
});

GET requests (no body)

GET requests omit the body parameter. The body hash is computed over an empty string:

const headers = await agent.signRequest(
  "GET",
  "https://api.example.com/data?page=1",
);

headers = agent.sign_request("GET", "https://api.example.com/data?page=1")

Complete Examples

For full runnable code examples including error handling, retry logic, and integration with popular HTTP libraries, see references/signed-fetch.md.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Resolution
Signature verification fails on server	Body mismatch — the body used for signing differs from the body sent	Ensure the exact same string is passed to both signRequest() and the HTTP request body. JSON serialization order matters.
Signature verification fails on server	Timestamp drift between client and server	Check that both machines have synchronized clocks (NTP). The default window is 5 minutes.
401 Unauthorized with valid signature	Path mismatch — signing used full URL but server verified with path only (or vice versa)	The signing algorithm uses only the path and query string (no scheme or host). Ensure the server reconstructs the same path.
SELF_AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY not found	Environment variable not set in MCP server config	Add the key to the env block in your MCP server configuration (.claude/mcp_servers.json or .mcp.json).
Signature is 0x followed by 130 hex chars but verification fails	Wrong EIP-191 prefix or hash construction	Verify the message is hashed with Keccak-256 before EIP-191 personal_sign. The prefix must be \x19Ethereum Signed Message:\n32 (32 bytes, not the hex string length).
GET request signature rejected	Body parameter passed as undefined instead of omitted	For GET requests, omit the body parameter entirely or pass an empty string. Do not pass undefined or null.