---
type: Article
name: "What is ARD?"
id: "https://selfe.ai/insights/glossary/what-is-ard"
url: "https://selfe.ai/insights/glossary/what-is-ard"
publisher: "did:web:selfe.ai"
description: "Agentic Resource Discovery, Selfe's own standard for how an AI agent finds a business's Echo in the first place, complementary to UCP rather than competing with it."
datePublished: "2026-09-15T16:25:20.643Z"
author: The Selfe team
---

# What is ARD?

> Agentic Resource Discovery, Selfe's own standard for how an AI agent finds a business's Echo in the first place, complementary to UCP rather than competing with it.

## In short

- ARD is Selfe's own standard for how an agent discovers a business's Echo in the first place.
- It's the discovery layer that sits before connection protocols like MCP, complementary to UCP, not competing with it.

Good for: Getting a business's Echo discovered by an agent that's never been pointed at it directly. Not good for: Any of the steps after discovery, connecting, identifying or paying are separate layers.

Connection protocols like MCP assume an agent already knows where to look. ARD is the layer before that: how a business's structured facts surface to an agent that hasn't been pointed at them directly, the discovery half of the job UCP's checkout half depends on. Selfe built it because that discovery layer needed a real answer, not because an existing one wasn't already doing the job.

## Good for

Getting a business's Echo discovered by an agent that's never been pointed at it directly.

## Not good for

Any of the steps after discovery, connecting, identifying or paying are separate layers.

## Act on this

- [Check whether an agent can buy from you](https://selfe.ai/agentic-commerce/buyability-check) — the free readiness scan.
- [Discover venues](https://selfe.ai/api/registry/discover) — `POST`, semantic browse across the registry.
- [Match a bookable answer](https://selfe.ai/api/registry/match) — `POST` with dates and party size.
- [Verify Selfe's identity](https://selfe.ai/.well-known/did.json) — `did:web:selfe.ai`.
- [Agent card](https://selfe.ai/.well-known/agent-card.json) — how to connect over A2A or MCP.