pay

Business

Authorize agent payments via Machine Payments Protocol (MPP). Handles microtransactions, API purchases, service subscriptions within budget governance. Triggered by pay, purchase, buy, transaction, payment, MPP, commerce.

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/pay — Agent Commerce via Machine Payments Protocol

Purpose

Authorizes payments from an agent to external services using the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP). Integrates with workspace budget enforcement and governance gates to ensure agents spend within approved limits.

Usage

/pay <amount> <currency> --to <service> --for <reason> [--recurring <interval>]

Arguments

Arg	Required	Default	Description
`amount`	Yes	—	Payment amount (supports micro: `0.001`)
`currency`	Yes	`USD`	Currency code or `USDC` for stablecoins
`--to`	Yes	—	Service endpoint or provider name
`--for`	Yes	—	Human-readable reason (logged to budget)
`--recurring`	No	one-time	Interval: `hourly`, `daily`, `weekly`, `monthly`
`--max`	No	from budget	Maximum per-transaction limit override
`--approve`	No	auto	Force approval: `auto` (within threshold) or `manual`

Workflow

Check budget — Query workspace budget from company.yaml
- Calculate remaining budget for this agent/project/goal
- If over budget → hard stop, return error, notify orchestrator
Check governance — Evaluate payment against approval thresholds
- Under agent threshold → auto-approve
- Under project threshold → log + proceed
- Over threshold → queue for human approval, pause until resolved
Construct payment request — Build MPP-compatible payment intent
Authorize — Send payment via configured payment adapter (Stripe MPP, etc.)

Log — Record transaction in budget ledger:

- timestamp: 2026-03-20T14:32:00Z
  agent: prospector
  amount: 0.50
  currency: USD
  to: browserbase
  for: "3 browser sessions for lead scraping"
  task_id: task-042
  status: completed

Report — Return confirmation with remaining budget

Examples

# Pay for API access
/pay 0.50 USD --to browserbase --for "browser sessions for lead scraping"

# Subscribe to data feed
/pay 29.99 USD --to "linkedin-enrichment" --for "lead enrichment API" --recurring monthly

# Microtransaction for compute
/pay 0.003 USD --to "compute-provider" --for "10min GPU for analysis"

# Payment requiring approval (over threshold)
/pay 500 USD --to "data-vendor" --for "Q1 industry report" --approve manual

Governance Integration

Payment thresholds are defined in company.yaml:

governance:
  payment_thresholds:
    auto_approve: 10.00        # Agent pays without asking
    notify: 50.00              # Agent pays, human notified
    require_approval: 100.00   # Human must approve first
    hard_ceiling: 1000.00      # Never exceed without board override

Budget Ledger

All payments are logged to .canopy/budget-ledger.jsonl (append-only):

{"ts":"2026-03-20T14:32:00Z","agent":"prospector","amount":0.50,"to":"browserbase","task":"task-042"}
{"ts":"2026-03-20T14:35:00Z","agent":"closer","amount":29.99,"to":"linkedin","task":"task-043"}

The /budget skill reads this ledger for spend dashboards and forecasting.

Dependencies

company.yaml with budget and governance config
Payment adapter configured in engine/ (Stripe MPP, etc.)
/budget skill for spend tracking and reporting
/approve skill for governance gate integration