Agent commerce and payments
Standards and controls for product discovery, checkout, payment authorization, and evidence of user intent in agent-mediated transactions.
Use it when
- An agent discovers products or advances a checkout across merchant and platform boundaries.
- Payment authorization needs portable evidence of user intent.
- Merchants, payment providers, and agents need interoperable transaction state.
Choose another layer when
- Prototype demos that imply purchasing without a real consent and authorization model.
- Storing raw payment credentials in agent memory or prompts.
Production path
Build it in this order
- 01
Separate shopping from authorization
Model discovery, cart changes, checkout, user confirmation, payment, fulfillment, and dispute evidence as distinct states.
Quality check: No product or price change can silently reuse an earlier approval.
- 02
Bind intent to the transaction
Capture who authorized what, within which limits, for how long, and through which credential or mandate.
Quality check: A verifier can match the final charge to the user's approved terms.
- 03
Design for failure and dispute
Use idempotency, signed evidence, status reconciliation, cancellation, refunds, and auditable handoffs.
Quality check: Retries, partial failures, or compromised agents cannot create ambiguous duplicate charges.
Artifacts you may see
- UCP capabilities
- AP2 mandates
- checkout state
- payment evidence
Connected layers
Evidence ledger
Primary documentation behind this guide
Provider-specific behavior is sourced to that provider. Open standards are sourced to their specifications and official maintainers.