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The auctionBeta

Second-score clearing

Version second-score/3 ranks expected cost and measured service, then clears against an independent rival, a disclosed reserve, or the winner’s own ask.

Owner
Protocol
Version
second-score/3
Verified
2026-07-13

Omnious beta uses second-score/3, a customer-capped reverse scoring auction. Short-lived signed standing quotes are ranked on expected request cost and router-measured service: time to first token, completion reliability, verification trust, and throughput. The lowest effective score wins.

Clearing then scales the winner's tariff toward the score of the best economically independent rival. A second, mix-robust guard caps each input, cached-input, and output rate against the cheapest independent rival rate under the selected routing profile. The same ceiling is checked again on metered actuals.

price-only sliceequal measured service
your ask$0.42✓ wins
best rival ask$0.55$ illustrative clear
your true cost ▎$0.42paid if you win: $0.55profit: $0.13

Equal-service example: an independent rival sets the clear. Live auctions also score measured service and disclose reserve or own-bid cases.

the simulator is deliberately narrowerThe interactive holds latency, reliability, trust, throughput, and provider-group independence equal so you can isolate the price logic. Live auctions use all second-score/3 terms and are not simply “the winner gets the second-best price.”

How a clear is set

  1. Independent rival. The best rival from a different economic provider group sets the score tie-point.
  2. Profile cap. The resulting tariff is capped rate by rate against the cheapest independent rival: Value 0%, Balanced and Coding 15%, Reasoning 20%, Frontier 25%, and Speed 30%.
  3. Own-ask eligibility. The winner is never paid below its signed ask. A provider whose own rates cannot fit the selected profile ceiling is excluded from winning before scoring.
  4. No genuine rival. A seven-day, group-hardened median winning bid can act as a disclosed phantom-reserve when sample thresholds are met. Otherwise the winner clears at its own ask.

What the incentive claim actually is

Where the independent-rival tie-point or customer cap sets the price, payment does not rise with the winner's own bid. Quoting above marginal cost can lose profitable fills without improving that clear. The own-bid floor is a disclosed pay-as-bid regime, so Omnious does not claim global dominant-strategy truthfulness there. The trade is deliberate: service can win fills, but its customer price is limited by the explicit premium ceiling of the selected profile.

As a customerYour receipt tells you whether a real rival, the disclosed reserve, an own bid, or a session lock set the tariff. You can audit the rule that priced the request rather than accepting “second price” as a slogan.
As a providerQuote executable marginal cost, maintain service quality, and use the disclosed score and price-setter feedback. Economic siblings cannot price one another.
where this lives in code