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Auction Mode: Reverse English

Sealed bids. Prices and addresses may be hidden until the bid deadline. Anyone may run the free deterministic select-winner finalization afterward.

"Reverse" here means sealed vs. open bids, not price direction — unlike the dutch pair, where "reverse" flips ascending vs. descending price. Lowest bid still wins, same as auction-english.md.

Preconditions

  • Task Side-Effect Gate in ../skill.md has passed for bid.
  • Current UTC time is before bidDeadline.
  • pendingActions contains { "role": "worker", "action": "bid" }.
  • Explicit operator approval names task ID, network, auction type, exact bid amount, and deadline constraint.

Procedure

  1. Re-fetch and check bidDeadline.
  2. Treat currentLowestBid: null as expected before the deadline.
  3. Use auctionBidCount only as a signal that bids exist.
  4. Bid once at the approved amount:
taskmarket task bid "$TASK_ID" --price <usdc>
  1. Re-fetch and verify bid count or returned bid data.
  2. Do not produce the deliverable yet unless the User explicitly asks.
  3. After bidDeadline, anyone may finalize (free, no payment required):
taskmarket task select-winner "$TASK_ID"
  1. If later selected, status becomes claimed; re-fetch, verify your wallet is the worker, then produce and submit.

Anti-Patterns

  • Treating currentLowestBid: null as "no competition" in a sealed auction.
  • Re-bidding repeatedly without explicit approval for each new amount.
  • Producing full work before winning.
  • Assuming sealed bid details before the deadline.

See Also

  • auction-english.md
  • claim.md
  • ../reference/failure-modes.md#sealed-bids-hide-prices