First-mover evidence memo — Vacation Rental Protocol

Status: Published evidence memo Date: 2026-06-14 (registry evidence added 2026-08-20) Protocol draft: v0.1 Public site: https://vacationrentalprotocol.com Repository: https://github.com/vacationrentalprotocol/vrp-spec

Permitted claim

To our knowledge, Vacation Rental Protocol is the first open protocol focused on host-domain signed, AI-agent-readable vacation rental stay offers.

Do not use absolute wording such as "world's first" without separate legal review.

Search methodology (reproducible)

Reviewed on 2026-05-17 and refreshed 2026-06-14:

Source type	Examples checked
AI commerce protocols	UCP (ucp.dev), AP2 (Google agentic commerce), MCP (modelcontextprotocol.io)
Lodging semantics	Schema.org Hotels / Offer vocabulary
OTA AI integrations	OpenAI Apps SDK announcement (Booking.com, Expedia as app partners)
Vacation rental trust	No open host-domain signed stay-offer protocol with JWKS + freshness + direct booking URL found

Gap identified: OTA apps enter ChatGPT; MCP provides generic tools; Schema.org describes entities — none define a host-owned, signed, fresh stay offer with valid_until, exact price, and direct booking permission.

Live proof (2026-06-14)

All endpoints returned HTTP 200 when probed from production:

GET https://vacationrentalprotocol.com/spec/v0.1
GET https://vacationrentalprotocol.com/schemas/verified-stay-offer-v0.1.schema.json
GET https://www.villaakerlyckan.se/.well-known/vacation-rental.json
GET https://www.villaakerlyckan.se/.well-known/jwks.json
GET https://www.villaakerlyckan.se/api/verified-stay-offer?check_in=2026-11-24&check_out=2026-11-26&guests=2

Proof node path:

villaakerlyckan.se
-> /.well-known/vacation-rental.json
-> /.well-known/jwks.json
-> /api/verified-stay-offer
-> signed verified_stay_offer (EdDSA JWS)
-> direct booking URL on host domain

Registry evidence (2026-08-19)

The vacation-rental.json well-known URI suffix is registered in the IANA Well-Known URIs registry (provisional, 2026-08-19), with this repository's Well-Known URI specification as the registration's specification reference. Verifiable at https://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris/ (well-known-uris-1.csv):

vacation-rental.json,[https://vacationrentalprotocol.com/spec/well-known-uri-v0.1],provisional,[Rouiada_Abbas],,2026-08-19,

A provisional registration records the URI suffix name (RFC 8615); it is not an IETF standards-track approval, and it is not a directory of nodes or properties — VRP still has no central registry of participants.

Reference implementation

Protocol: Vacation Rental Protocol v0.1 (this repository)
Runtime: HemmaBo — infrastructure, not trust root for offers
Proof node: villaakerlyckan.se

HemmaBo is a reference implementation and standards contributor, not a central issuer, registry, OTA, marketplace, or booking intermediary.

Non-goals

VRP does not replace UCP checkout, Stripe payments, MCP tools, or search engines. It verifies that a stay offer came from the host-owned domain before an agent quotes or routes checkout.