Dapr 1.18 introduces Verifiable Execution, bringing cryptographic trust to AI agents and workflows. * Craig Risi Software Architect | Game Designer| Writer | Speaker Write for InfoQ. Feed your curiosity. Help 550k+ global senior developers each month stay ahead. Get in touch Diagrid has announced the release of Dapr 1.18, introducing what it calls Verifiable Execution, a new set of capabilities designed to bring cryptographic trust, provenance, and tamper-evident execution records to distributed applications and AI agents. The update, one of the most significant since Dapr 1.10, introduces Workflow History Signing, Workflow History Propagation, and Workflow Attestation, enabling organizations to verify how workflows were executed, which identities performed actions, and whether execution histories have been altered. The release is available immediately as an open-source update to Dapr and through Diagrid's managed Catalyst Cloud platform. The announcement addresses one of the most pressing challenges emerging in the age of agentic AI: trust. While distributed systems have become increasingly resilient over the last decade, and AI agents are now capable of carrying out complex, long-running tasks, proving how those tasks were executed has remained difficult. Dapr 1.18 aims to close that gap by introducing cryptographic chains of custody that span workflows, services, and AI agents, giving organizations a verifiable record of execution that can be independently validated. Historically, workflow engines and distributed systems have focused primarily on durability and fault tolerance. Modern workflows can survive infrastructure failures, recover from crashes, and retry failed operations automatically. However, questions around provenance and accountability have become increasingly important as AI systems begin making business-critical decisions. When an AI agent approves a financial transaction, accesses sensitive information, invokes another agent, or executes a long-running workflow, organizations increasingly need answers to questions such as: Who initiated the action? Has the execution history been altered? Can downstream systems trust the results? And can auditors verify the chain of events independently? Workflow History Signing allows workflow execution histories to be cryptographically signed using identities based on the open SPIFFE standard, creating tamper-evident records that can be independently verified. Workflow History Propagation extends execution lineage across services, workflows, and application boundaries, allowing downstream systems to understand where requests originated and what prior actions influenced them. Finally, Workflow Attestation enables workflows and activities to receive trusted execution context, allowing policies and compliance checks to make decisions based on verified provenance. Together, these capabilities create what Diagrid describes as Verifiable Execution, a model in which the history of a workflow becomes as trustworthy and auditable as the data it produces. The release reflects a broader shift occurring across the software industry. Over the last several years, technologies such as software signing, software bills of materials (SBOMs), and artifact attestations have become foundational elements of software supply chain security. Organizations increasingly expect to know where software came from, how it was built, and whether it has been tampered with. As AI systems become more autonomous, organizations are facing growing demands for explainability, regulatory compliance, and operational accountability. In regulated industries such as healthcare and financial services, proving how an AI-driven decision was made may become as important as the decision itself. Dapr 1.18 extends supply chain security concepts beyond software artifacts and into runtime execution, allowing workflows and AI agents to produce verifiable evidence of what happened, who performed an action, and whether the execution history remains intact. The Jobs API, which enables scheduling of future and recurring work, has now graduated to stable status after undergoing extensive performance testing and is considered production-ready. Component and Configuration Hot Reloading is now generally available, enabling organizations to update configurations without restarting applications or interrupting running workloads. The release also introduces improvements to the Actor runtime model. Applications can now establish a single bidirectional gRPC stream to receive callbacks from the Dapr sidecar, eliminating the need to expose inbound server ports and reducing networking complexity and attack surface. At the infrastructure level, Dapr 1.18 adds IPv6 and dual-stack networking support, alongside RFC 7230-compliant handling of hop-by-hop HTTP headers during service invocation, improving interoperability and networking security in modern environments. The timing of the release aligns with growing industry efforts to define the infrastructure required for trustworthy AI systems. Organizations including Microsoft, the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) have increasingly focused on governance, interoperability, identity, and provenance as foundational requirements for agent-based AI systems. With Dapr 1.18, Diagrid is betting that the next phase of cloud-native computing will not simply be about durable execution; it will be about verifiable execution, where trust, provenance, and cryptographic accountability become built-in features of the platforms powering AI and distributed applications. Craig Risi. Craig Risi is a man of many talents but has no sense of how to use them. He could be out changing the world but prefers to make software instead. He possesses a passion for software design, but more importantly software quality and designing systems in a technically diverse and constantly evolving tech world. Craig is also the writer of the book, Quality By Design: Designing Quality Software Systems, and writes regular articles on his blog sites and various other tech sites around the world. When not playing with software, he can often be found writing, designing board games, or running long distances for no apparent reason. Related sponsors. A round-up of last week's content on InfoQ sent out every Tuesday. Join a community of over 250,000 senior developers. View an example

Linux Foundation extends DNS to AI agents with new Agent Name Service. The Linux Foundation said today it plans to launch the Agent Name Service, an open standard that gives artificial intelligence agents trusted identities through the same Domain Name System that already runs the internet. Using ANS, a system or a person can confirm what organization an agent belongs to and what it has permission to do. It can also show whether the agent's code or its record of past activity has been altered. There is no new lookup network and no proprietary registry. Identity is tied straight to DNS, which handles more than 100 million queries per second worldwide. The timing reflects how quickly agents are reaching live systems. Enterprises are putting agents into production before they have settled how to authenticate them, govern what they do or make them work across systems. The Linux Foundation pointed to World Economic Forum data showing 82% of executives plan to adopt AI agents within one to three years. Many of those same executives are not confident they can vet or control the agents once they are running. Jim Zemlin, chief executive of the Linux Foundation, tied the standard to that gap. Agents are about to operate across companies and platforms, he said and that makes verified identity something organizations have to get right early rather than bolt on later. He argued that anchoring the framework to DNS and open standards makes it possible to scale verified agent communication across the wider digital economy. ANS supports decentralized identifiers and Legal Entity Identifiers, allowing organizations to fold existing identity systems into a single verification model. The Linux Foundation is positioning the project as vendor-neutral, an argument it has leaned on before in standards work and one that several backers echoed. The launch arrives with industry support attached. Jared Sine, chief strategy and legal officer at GoDaddy Inc., said building on proven internet foundations gives agents a way to be identified across the open web without recreating the walled gardens of earlier platform shifts. Dane Knecht, chief technology officer at Cloudflare Inc., said extending DNS to agents addresses the identity and security problem "before it gets out of hand." Cisco Systems Inc. and Salesforce Inc. also signaled involvement, with Cisco saying it is contributing to open standards efforts at both the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Linux Foundation. The standard grew out of an award-winning research paper led by Ken Huang, chief executive of DistributedApps.ai, with co-author Vineeth Sai Narajala of the Open Worldwide Application Security Project. Huang said his concern had been that agents would proliferate without a neutral identity and discovery layer, creating the shadow AI risks that worry security teams. The Linux Foundation is asking enterprises, developers, infrastructure providers and security researchers to contribute. Technical repositories and contribution details are available through the Agent Name Service organization on GitHub. The push extends a busy stretch of work on agent trust. Diagrid Inc. this month shipped cryptographic execution proofs for agents, and startup Tenet Security Inc. launched a platform to catch rogue agent behavior at runtime. Image: Linux Foundation. A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE: Support its mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE's Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities. * 15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more * 11.4k+ theCUBE alumni - Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network. About SiliconANGLE Media SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation, uniting breakthrough technology, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios - with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange - SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI. Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Its new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.

Diagrid has released Dapr 1.18, introducing verifiable execution capabilities for AI agents and workflows. The update enables organisations to cryptographically verify workflow execution, establish identity custody, and ensure execution history integrity through three new features: Workflow History Signing, Workflow History Propagation, and Workflow Attestation. The release addresses trust and accountability in AI systems by allowing tamper-proof verification of AI agent decisions and actions. When agents approve transactions or access sensitive data, organisations can now prove what happened through cryptographic chains of execution. Additional features include a stable Jobs API for scheduled workloads, general availability for component hot-reloading, and actor API improvements. Dapr 1.18 is available as an open-source release and on Diagrid Catalyst Cloud.