Changelog

Phase 1 — expanded deterministics, diligence reports, mandate alerts, and VBP hardening.

• POST /v1/verify/before-pay — pass raw x402 / AP2 / ACP payloads; Faro extracts counterparty artifacts and returns the riskiest verdict. MCP verify_before_pay adds pause-and-ask elicitation on 🟡/🔴 (advisory only).
• Expanded deterministic layer — IBAN/IFSC/BIC structure checks, EU VIES VAT, India GSTIN/PAN, Singapore UEN, UK Companies House, certificate transparency, DNS email-auth posture, UK/EU sanctions feeds, and on-chain crypto screening wired into payee/url paths.
• POST /v1/diligence — batch-verify up to 10 artifacts and receive a cited markdown narrative with a groundedness gate (every claim traces to a signal).
• Entity watches — POST /v1/me/watch and MCP watch_artifact register mandate-scoped interest; artifact.flagged webhooks fire when the entity turns bad.
• Usage logging now suffixes before-pay routes by protocol (:x402, :ap2, :acp) and records hosted MCP tool calls per key.

MCP Apps verdict card, typed output, verify-before-pay, and a browser verify console.

• MCP Apps verdict card — verify tools advertise ui://faro/verdict-card (text/html+mcp); supported hosts render a rich card from structuredContent. report_verdict tool lets users flag wrong verdicts from the card UI (same report loop as POST /v1/reports). Clients without MCP Apps support keep the JSON/text fallback. See /docs/mcp.
• Each MCP tool (verify_url, verify_payee, verify_message) now advertises an outputSchema derived from VerdictResult — branch on recommended_action without parsing prose.
• Tool responses emit structuredContent (typed JSON) plus a JSON-in-text fallback for clients that do not negotiate structured output.
• verify_payment_intent (MCP) and POST /v1/verify/payment-intent (REST) — map AP2 / x402 / ACP counterparty context to existing payee/url checks before settlement. Faro stays advisory; the payment rail settles.
• Verify console at farofinance.app/verify — run live checks in the browser with verdict cards, action guidance, and local history. API key stays server-side in an http-only cookie.
• Same engine and contract as REST; hosted MCP endpoint unchanged at https://mcp.farofinance.app/mcp. See /docs/mcp.
• Registry manifest at github.com/vedux98/Faro/blob/main/server.json for MCP Registry listing.

Developer dashboard and test-mode sandbox keys.

• Dashboard at farofinance.app/dashboard — paste a self-serve key to see usage (last 30 days), recent verdicts, and your key prefix. The key is held in a secure http-only cookie, never in the browser.
• Test mode — keys with the faro_test_ prefix short-circuit verify to deterministic fixtures: no Safe Browsing / RDAP / sanctions / LLM, no cost, and no writes to the reputation graph. Responses carry an X-Faro-Mode: test header; the VerdictResult shape is unchanged. See /docs/dashboard.
• New per-key routes: GET /v1/me, GET /v1/me/usage, GET /v1/me/verdicts, and POST /v1/me/keys/test. Admin keys receive 403 — these are self-serve only.
• POST /v1/reports from a test key is accepted as a no-op so sandbox integrations can exercise the path without touching live data.

Faro v1.1 is live — hosted MCP, payee enrichment, and official SDKs.

• Hosted MCP server at https://mcp.farofinance.app/mcp — streamable-HTTP transport for cloud agents and MCP marketplaces. Run locally with faro-mcp (stdio) or faro-mcp-http / uvicorn faro.mcp_server.http_server:app for self-hosted HTTP. Same three tools (verify_url, verify_payee, verify_message), Bearer auth, per-key rate limits, body-size cap, and per-call timeouts.
• Official Python (faro-client) and TypeScript (@faro/client) SDKs — typed VerdictResult, same contract as REST and MCP.
• Curated OpenAPI 3.1 spec with Bearer auth, examples, and Redoc at /docs/api-reference.
• Payee enrichment: GLEIF (LEI), OffshoreLeaks (via OpenSanctions), and GDELT adverse media — richer signals, same verdict shape.
• Feedback loop — POST /v1/reports to flag bad actors or false positives; invalidates cached safe verdicts and feeds the reputation graph. See /docs/reports.
• Signup now issues an API key immediately in the web flow (shown once, with copy-and-hide UX for safer handling).
• Signup and key issuance hardening: server-side honeypot handling, stricter input validation, DB-backed per-email key throttling, and no-store response caching on secret-bearing routes.
• Security headers tightened on web responses (X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy, HSTS).
• Added Vercel Analytics integration.

Faro v0 — first public API.

• Three verdict types: url, payee, message, plus a generic POST /v1/verify.
• One consistent VerdictResult across REST and MCP.
• Tiered engine: deterministic checks (Safe Browsing, RDAP, OpenSanctions, global payment-handle format) → LLM reasoning only when inconclusive.
• Verdict-aware caching for fast, fresh repeat checks.
• MCP server (faro-mcp) with three agent-facing tools.
• Bearer API-key auth, consistent error envelope, per-request X-Request-ID.