Agent Commerce Knowledge Layer
Certified Commerce Gateway
Definition
Certified Commerce Gateway:
The Certified Commerce Gateway is a provider-neutral primitive for governed merchant actions: an AI agent proposes an action, a deterministic policy evaluates it as allowed, denied, or requiring human approval, an approved action is executed under a serialized lock against a committed execution target, and the outcome is recorded as an Ed25519-signed evidence artifact. It is distinct from Agent Commerce payment authorization, which governs the payment step of a purchase rather than a merchant-side action.
Definition source: https://certifieddata.io/api/definitions/certified-commerce-gateway
Preferred anchor phrase: certified commerce gateway
The Certified Commerce Gateway governs merchant-side actions an AI agent proposes, not the payment step of a purchase: propose an action, evaluate it against deterministic policy, bind human approval when policy requires it, serialize execution against a committed target, and sign the outcome as evidence.
It is provider-neutral and executor-neutral: the same envelope, policy, approval, and evidence model applies whether the action targets a sandbox fixture or a registered merchant endpoint, and whichever AI provider proposed the action.
What the gateway governs
A commerce action names an agent, an optional merchant, an action type, a target resource, and bounded parameters. The gateway evaluates it against the agent's policy before anything executes, and the environment (sandbox or live) and the calling principal come from the authenticated request, never from the action body.
- -Deterministic policy outcome: allow, deny, or approval_required, bound to the exact policy snapshot evaluated
- -Approval binding: a human decision recorded only through an authenticated session, tied to the exact action and policy snapshot
- -Serialized execution: the execution target is committed before the action runs, and a database-enforced state transition allows only one attempt to be in flight at a time
How outcomes are recorded
Every terminal outcome — executed or failed — produces one Ed25519-signed evidence record naming the committed execution target, the attempt number, and the executor's result. An outcome that could not be confirmed is recorded as indeterminate, never as executed. Reconciliation resolves it by re-driving the same committed target with the same executor-level idempotency key, so whether the merchant ultimately applies the effect once depends on the merchant honoring that idempotency contract.
Later facts such as refunds, disputes, reversals and corrections are appended as lifecycle events bound to the original evidence hash. The original signed action evidence is never rewritten, and a lifecycle event is not a second signed evidence record.
- -commerce_action_evidence.v1: the signed record naming policy outcome, approval, execution target, and result
- -Append-only lifecycle events for refund, dispute, reversal, and correction, each bound to the evidence hash it qualifies
What it does not claim
A signed evidence record proves what the gateway authorized, sent, and recorded. It does not prove merchant-side fulfillment or settlement finality, and a payment proof attached to an action is transport evidence, not authorization: the policy and approval decision is made first, independent of payment.
Live execution requires an operator-registered merchant endpoint; without one, live actions fail closed rather than executing.
Verification Layer
Every executed or failed commerce action produces an Ed25519-signed evidence record naming the policy outcome, the approval it relied on, and the exact execution target invoked.
The gateway is a distinct mechanism from Agent Commerce payment authorization: it governs merchant-side actions rather than the payment step of a purchase, and shares no execution path with the existing /v1/transactions payment API.
Related concepts
Agent Payment Authorization
The policy check that determines whether an AI agent's spend request is permitted.
Payment Policy Engine
The deterministic rule engine that governs AI agent spend requests.
AI Spend Governance
The policy, audit, and escalation framework for AI agent spend.
AI Agent Commerce
Transactions initiated and executed by autonomous software agents.
Frequently asked questions
How is the Certified Commerce Gateway different from Agent Commerce payment authorization?
Payment authorization governs whether a payment step in a purchase is allowed to proceed. The Certified Commerce Gateway governs merchant-side actions more broadly — proposing, approving, and executing a bounded action against a merchant, with its own policy model, approval binding, and evidence schema. The two do not share an execution path.
Does a payment proof authorize a commerce action?
No. The gateway decides policy and approval outcomes first, independent of any payment. When a payment proof (for example an x402 header) accompanies an execution attempt, it is recorded as transport evidence alongside the outcome, and it never substitutes for a policy or approval decision.