> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://agenticadvertisingorg-snap-format-preview-links.mintlify.site/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # A3: The AdCP landscape > Module A3: Survey of every AdCP domain — media buy, creative, catalogs, accounts, signals, governance, sponsored intelligence, and the Trusted Match Protocol. Free 15-minute interactive overview. # A3: The AdCP landscape **Free module** — No account required. \~15 minutes with Addie. Prerequisite: [A2](/docs/learning/foundations/a2-protocol-architecture). This is the survey course. Touch everything, go deep on nothing. You'll get a map of the entire AdCP ecosystem — every protocol domain, every discovery mechanism, every governance layer. Designed to pique your curiosity and show you where to go deeper. Completing A1 + A2 + A3 earns the **AdCP basics** credential. ## Learning objectives * Describe what `brand.json` is and why advertisers, publishers, sellers, and platforms use it * Explain `adagents.json` and how publishers authorize agents for inventory * Name all eight AdCP protocol domains and what each covers * Identify which areas you want to explore deeper in a role track * Recognize the three trust primitives that make the ecosystem safe: authenticated identity, signed governance tokens, and agent/account isolation ## Reading list Brand identity claims, brand.json discovery, and brand hierarchy. Four variants: house portfolio, brand agent, redirects, minimal. How seller identity, property relationships, and signing keys fit with publisher authorization. The governance protocol: property governance, brand governance, content standards, creative governance, and campaign governance. Always-on compliance: ties campaigns to media plans, validates every transaction through three independent parties. Community-maintained library of advertising regulations and standards that brands reference by ID. The five principles behind AdCP governance — how humans stay in control when agents act autonomously. The creative protocol: assets, formats, manifests, creative agents, and 20 channels of adaptation. The signals protocol: audience segments, contextual signals, measurement data, and optimization. Conversational brand experiences in AI assistants — a genuinely new advertising model. Real-time execution: context match and identity match activate packages at serve time across all surfaces. How agents advertise what they support so other agents can discover them. The commercial layer: advertisers, operators, authentication, billing, and account lifecycle. How AdCP defends against unauthorized spend, cross-tenant leakage, replay attacks, and SSRF across the ecosystem. ## What you'll cover with Addie Addie walks through each domain with a quick live example — just enough to understand what each area does: **Discovery and community:** * `brand.json`: a machine-readable identity record at `/.well-known/brand.json` for advertisers, publishers, sellers, and platforms * `adagents.json`: how publishers declare properties and authorize sales or governance agents for inventory * Community registry: how agents and brands find each other * AgenticAdvertising.org: working groups, industry councils, how the spec evolves **Trust primitives (how the ecosystem stays safe):** * **Authenticated identity** — cryptographic proof of which agent is calling, not a header claim the seller has to take on faith * **Signed governance context** — approval tokens from the buyer's governance agent that bind a plan to a specific seller and phase, verifiable by auditors years later * **Agent and account isolation** — every piece of state is scoped to the calling agent and the account it is acting on; cross-tenant reads are rejected with a generic "not found" **Protocol domains:** * **Accounts** — commercial identity, operator-billed vs agent-billed, account lifecycle, `get_adcp_capabilities` * **Media buy** — proposals, forecasting, refinement, packages, keyword targeting, geo-proximity * **Creative** — formats vs manifests, 20 channels, AI-powered generation with `build_creative` * **Signals** — audience data, privacy-compliant signals, conversion tracking, attribution * **Governance** — content standards, property lists, the Oracle model for AI-driven brand safety, campaign governance (multi-party validation, budget authority, policy registry) * **Sponsored Intelligence** — conversational brand experiences, cost-per-conversation instead of CPM ([experimental](/docs/reference/experimental-status) in 3.0) * **Trusted Match Protocol** — impression-time execution: context match (content fit) and identity match (user eligibility), cross-publisher frequency capping, works across web, mobile, CTV, AI assistants, and retail media ([experimental](/docs/reference/experimental-status) in 3.0, feature id `trusted_match.core`) * **Brand Protocol** — `brand.json` resolution, brand identity claims, brand hierarchy * **Registry** — entity resolution, agent discovery, community directory ## Assessment | Dimension | Weight | What Addie looks for | | -------------------- | ------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Breadth | 35% | Can you describe what each protocol domain does? | | Discovery mechanisms | 25% | Do you understand brand.json, adagents.json, and capability discovery? | | Key concepts | 25% | Can you explain format vs manifest, billing models, the Oracle model, and context match vs identity match (TMP's two-operation model)? | | Synthesis | 15% | Can you connect concepts across domains without prompting? | Passing threshold: 70%. ## Start this module Open Addie and say "I'd like to start certification module A3." **Next:** Choose your role track — [Publisher](/docs/learning/tracks/publisher), [Buyer](/docs/learning/tracks/buyer), or [Platform](/docs/learning/tracks/platform)