Loading...
Agent Payment Mandates (AP2)
Authorizes agent-initiated purchases through a chain of cryptographically signed, verifiable-credential mandates instead of handing an agent raw card details. An Intent Mandate captures the user's up-front constraints (max price, allowed merchants, time-to-live) so the agent can buy while the user is not present; a Cart Mandate is merchant-signed and user-co-signed for the exact items and price, giving what-you-see-is-what-you-pay; and a Payment Mandate is shared with the payment network. The signed chain forms a non-repudiable audit trail that resolves authorization, authenticity, and accountability for autonomous spend, and it is rail-agnostic with an A2A-x402 profile for crypto rails. Distinct from authenticated-delegation: that pattern grants an agent scoped authority to act, whereas AP2 binds each specific purchase to a signed mandate chain a payment network can independently verify.
Loading technique guide…
Agent Payment Mandates (AP2)
Authorizes agent-initiated purchases through a chain of cryptographically signed, verifiable-credential mandates instead of handing an agent raw card details. An Intent Mandate captures the user's up-front constraints (max price, allowed merchants, time-to-live) so the agent can buy while the user is not present; a Cart Mandate is merchant-signed and user-co-signed for the exact items and price, giving what-you-see-is-what-you-pay; and a Payment Mandate is shared with the payment network. The signed chain forms a non-repudiable audit trail that resolves authorization, authenticity, and accountability for autonomous spend, and it is rail-agnostic with an A2A-x402 profile for crypto rails. Distinct from authenticated-delegation: that pattern grants an agent scoped authority to act, whereas AP2 binds each specific purchase to a signed mandate chain a payment network can independently verify.
Loading technique guide…