> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.tessera.finance/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Tessera

> The liquidation network for permissioned real-world assets.

Tessera is a liquidation protocol for permissioned real-world assets. It runs identity-aware Dutch auctions for ERC-3643-style collateral, gates participation through the issuer's identity registry, and settles atomically through a pluggable settlement adapter.

These docs describe the protocol — its primitives, its architecture, its invariants. They are the technical reference for anyone reasoning about how Tessera works.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="What Tessera does" icon="circle-info" href="/what-is-tessera">
    The protocol in one paragraph, the three-actor structure, the four-layer architecture.
  </Card>

  <Card title="The composability problem" icon="puzzle-piece" href="/protocol/composability-problem">
    Why standard liquidation breaks for permissioned tokens, and why incumbents do not extend into the long tail.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Architecture" icon="layer-group" href="/protocol/architecture">
    Registry, identity, auction, and settlement layers. Composed with explicit interfaces.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Invariants" icon="shield" href="/protocol/invariants">
    What the protocol guarantees, and how those guarantees are enforced on-chain.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## A note on naming

The protocol's name comes from the Latin and Italian *tessera*, the small individual tile used in mosaic work. Each compliant liquidation is a discrete tile in a larger compliance picture; each verified solver, each issuer integration, each settled auction is a small precise unit that composes into a larger continuous infrastructure. *Tesserae* historically referred to the small clay or stone tablets used as identity credentials in Ancient Rome and the Byzantine Empire — a direct etymological link to the identity-verification core of the protocol.