DANE Record Grounding Data for AI Agents

The tool

The API parses TLSA records and validates usage types, selector types, and matching types while providing detailed explanations of each field and security implications.

Once your client is connected to the VerveContext MCP server, this appears in its tool list as DANERecordGroundingDataforAIAgents. It is read-only and open-world: it fetches, it never mutates anything on your side, so most clients will call it without asking you to confirm.

{
  "name": "DANERecordGroundingDataforAIAgents",
  "arguments": {
    "record": "_443._tcp.example.com. 3600 IN TLSA 3 1 1 2bb183af273adee2e02d60ba7a0dc0efcf5e0a2af42dab7b3f8ba9c0def1f6c8"
  }
}

What that looks like in a conversation

You don't name the tool — the model picks it. Asking about _443._tcp.example.com. 3600 IN TLSA 3 1 1 2bb183af273adee2e02d60ba7a0dc0efcf5e0a2af42dab7b3f8ba9c0def1f6c8 in the terms this source covers is enough for it to reach for DANERecordGroundingDataforAIAgents on its own.

Connecting

One server URL covers every source in the catalog, including this one. Authorization is OAuth — the client opens a browser once and there is no key to paste into a config file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vervecontext": {
      "url": "https://api.vervecontext.com/v1/mcp"
    }
  }
}

https://api.vervecontext.com/v1/mcp

Per-client setup — Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT — is on the MCP setup page.

Arguments

These are the properties on the tool's inputSchema, so a well-behaved client validates them before the call is made.

What the model gets back

The result carries a structuredContent object matching the tool's declared outputSchema, so a client can read fields without parsing prose. status is "ok" on success and error is null; a null field means the value wasn't available for that input, not that the call failed.

{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "raw_record": "_443._tcp.example.com. 86400 IN TLSA 3 1 1 0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF",
    "parsed": {
      "name": "_443._tcp.example.com.",
      "port": 443,
      "protocol": "tcp",
      "hostname": "example.com",
      "ttl": 86400,
      "class": "IN",
      "usage": 3,
      "selector": 1,
      "matching": 1,
      "certificate_data": "0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF",
      "certificate_data_length": 64
    },
    "interpretation": {
      "usage": {
        "name": "DANE-EE",
        "description": "Domain-issued certificate",
        "full_description": "Certificate must exactly match the provided association data (most common)"
      },
      "selector": {
        "name": "SPKI",
        "description": "SubjectPublicKeyInfo",
        "full_description": "Match against the Subject Public Key Info (recommended)"
      },
      "matching": {
        "name": "SHA-256",
        "description": "SHA-256 hash",
        "full_description": "SHA-256 hash of the selected content (recommended)"
      },
      "security_level": "Recommended",
      "recommendation": "This is the recommended DANE configuration (DANE-EE + SPKI + SHA-256)"
    },
    "validation": {
      "is_valid": true,
      "certificate_data_format": "Valid hexadecimal",
      "certificate_data_length_valid": true
    }
  }
}

Fields

Why ground on it

A model can produce something that looks like this answer from its training data, and be confidently out of date or simply wrong. This source returns the current value with a shape you can check, which is the difference between an answer you can cite and one you have to hedge.

Point an evaluation at raw_record: it is the field most worth pinning a claim to, and it is either present and current or absent — never plausibly invented.

Failure modes

Errors come back as tool errors with a sentence the model can act on, not a bare status code.

Other ways to use DANE Record Grounding Data for AI Agents

Set up DANE Record Grounding Data for AI Agents on VerveContext, or reach the same source a different way. Your VerveContext account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.

Frequently asked questions