WASHINGTON - The Bureau of Agent Purchases said Wednesday a coding agent may add a vendor to a repository only after it draws that vendor's calling card from a locked spinning rack in the ministry waiting room, with a numbered gripper issued at the cloakroom. Circular 41 treats the card in the gripper as the install. A clerk stamps the card "SEEN" in wet ink and enters the vendor on the day's purchase ledger. Cards left on the rack at close of business are shredded. A mention in a README or on a pricing page does not count. "An install is a card in the gripper," said deputy registrar Helen Voss. "If the agent only talks about a product, we file that as conversation and we empty the shredder." Software houses wait in the ministry with boxes of cards. A staffer at one payments vendor, who asked not to be named, said the firm reprinted its card after the gripper dropped a glossy stock that would not take the stamp. Circular 41 takes effect 1 October. The bureau said it will publish a weekly list of stamped cards and will not hear appeals from vendors whose cards were shredded.