Phase

# Fix list: Phase

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/phase, the October 2026 research run, assessed 8 October 2026. Grade B, 68 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Phase: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Payments & pricing, 25 out of 100, up to 9.4 more on the total

Why it scored 25: Graded on the hosted option. No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public at $10 and $25 a user a month, with no per-call price (10). A Free plan and 14-day trials. The pricing page does not say whether a card is taken (15 of 20). A person signs in to the console in a browser with Google, GitHub or GitLab before any token exists (0). Service accounts are free on every plan.

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 2. Agent ergonomics, 56 out of 100, up to 7.2 more on the total

Why it scored 56: `GET /v1/secrets` filters by path, key and tags, and the CLI skill is one document, but there is no field selection or names-only read (15 of 25). No pagination or limit parameter was found in the API reference (8 of 20). Status codes are documented with their causes, and the body is a single free-text `error` string with no code (12 of 20). No idempotency keys. A repeated create returns 409, and there is no MCP server to carry annotations (8 of 20). Reads need two parameters, `app_id` and `env`, and there are SDKs for Go, Node, Python and browser JS, the Node and Python ones last published in 2025 (13 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 3. Schema & documentation, 58 out of 100, up to 6.8 more on the total

Why it scored 58: No OpenAPI or other machine-readable contract was found in the docs or the repositories (0). llms.txt at docs.phase.dev indexes Markdown copies of every page (10). The API reference describes each parameter and says when an endpoint refuses, such as rotating secrets rejecting `PUT` and the need for server-side encryption (14 of 20). Types, enums and required fields are given in prose only, and `lease_ttl` is typed as a boolean while described in seconds (9 of 15). Each of the 47 operations has curl, JavaScript and Python examples, and an errors page lists the status codes, with one free-text `error` field (12 of 15). Paths are versioned under `/v1`, with a public changelog of 39 entries and release notes on GitHub (13 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 4. Security & auth, 83 out of 100, up to 3 more on the total

Why it scored 83: Service account tokens take an expiry, can be deleted, and inherit the account's role and its apps and environments. AWS IAM and Azure identities receive tokens with a TTL. Scope belongs to the account, not the token (27 of 30). A read-only Service role, custom roles and network access policies on Pro, write-only sealed secrets, and CLI guardrails that block `printenv` and `phase shell` for agents. No approval step for destructive calls was found in the docs (16 of 20). Secrets are not untrusted content, and the CLI masks values from agents (13 of 15). Every read is logged with actor and IP address, kept 24 hours on Free and 90 days on Pro (12 of 15). security.txt valid to 2030, a disclosure policy in `SECURITY.md`, SOC 2 Type II and yearly penetration tests claimed. No bug bounty was found, and GitHub advisories were not read (15 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 5. Transparency & trust, 73 out of 100, up to 2.4 more on the total

Made of editorial 58, provenance 87.

Why it scored 73: MIT outside the `ee/` directories, with billing, licensing and some access and integration code under a proprietary enterprise licence (24 of 30). The privacy policy of 11 March 2026 covers the services but gives no retention period, and the subprocessor list sits in a trust centre our reader could not load. No DPA was found on the public pages (16 of 30). The terms allow products to be changed or discontinued with notice by email or on the site. No deprecation policy or dated notices were found (5 of 20). The hosting region (AWS eu-central-1) and egress IP addresses are published, and the docs say self-hosted instances send no usage telemetry. The subprocessor list was not read (13 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Domain age: phase.dev, registered 2023-02-03 (3 years) (7 of 15)
- Terms of service: read, states 7 of the 7 things a reader expects, and has 2 clauses that cost points (6 of 10)
- Privacy policy: read, states 7 of the 8 things a reader expects (9.3 of 10)

## 6. Reliability, 91 out of 100, up to 1.8 more on the total

Why it scored 91: Graded as a hosted service, Phase Cloud. Atlassian Statuspage at phase.statuspage.io with components for the console and the API (20). No incident since 10 July 2026. The newest entries are an emergency database scaling on 30 June and a 50-minute partial API outage on 15 June 2026, both outside the 90 days (30). Rate limits published per plan, 120 requests a minute on Free and 240 on Pro, per account (15). A 429 carries a `retry-after` header and a duplicate create returns 409, but no idempotency keys or retry guidance for writes were found (11 of 15). The pricing page lists a 99.99 per cent uptime SLA on Enterprise. No SLA document was found and the terms carry no uptime commitment (5 of 10). The REST API and CLI are generally available (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 7. Maintenance & community, 83 out of 100, up to 1.5 more on the total

Why it scored 83: Console v2.77.2 was released on 4 October 2026, four days before this check, and a v2.77.3 version bump was merged on 8 October (30). Eleven console versions between 24 July and 8 October 2026, and CLI v2.3.1 and v2.3.2 on 28 July and 20 September (20). 85 open issues and pull requests. Of the two newest issues, one had a pull request opened the next day and the other had no reply after one day. The sample is small (15 of 25). The Go SDK was bumped to v2.4.1 in September 2026, while `@phase.dev/phase-node` 3.2.0 dates from October 2025 and `phase-dev` 2.1.2 from April 2025 (9 of 15). CI passed on the default branch on 8 October and dependency update pull requests are open and current (9 of 10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- unchecked: trust.phase.dev is drawn by script and returned no text, so the subprocessor list, any DPA and the SOC 2 details were not read.
- unchecked: GitHub security advisories for phasehq/console were not read.
- unchecked: whether signing up for the Free plan or a trial takes a card. The pricing page does not say.
- The Phase Agents Relay credential proxy is listed as included on every plan, but no docs page, CLI command or merged code for it was found on 8 October 2026.
- The lead gave the vendor as Phase. The terms and the licence name Phi Security Inc.
- No SLA document was found behind the 99.99 per cent figure on the Enterprise plan.
- Issue responsiveness was judged from two recent issues only.

## Weaknesses

- No OpenAPI document was found. The REST reference is prose with examples, covering 47 operations
- No pagination, field selection or idempotency keys were found in the API reference, and errors are a single free-text `error` string
- The Free plan keeps audit logs for 24 hours. Rotation, custom roles and network access policies need Pro, and dynamic secrets need Enterprise
- The REST API works only on apps with server-side encryption enabled, which gives up end-to-end encryption for that app
- The pricing page lists a Phase Agents Relay credential proxy on every plan, but no documentation or CLI command for it was found

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Enable server-side encryption on the app before calling `/v1/secrets`. Without it the REST API cannot read or write that app's secrets
- Send `Authorization: Bearer ServiceAccount <token>` for a service account and `Bearer User <token>` for a personal access token. The token type is part of the header
- Stay under 120 requests a minute per account on Free and 240 on Pro, and wait the seconds in the `retry-after` header on a 429
- Treat a 409 on `POST /v1/secrets` as the key already existing at that path, and use `PUT` to change it. Rotating secrets reject `PUT` and `DELETE`
- Have a person run `phase ai enable` and choose masked values. The CLI blocks an agent from running `phase ai enable` or `phase ai disable` itself

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.