Canonical economic verbs & schemas for autonomous agents.
Commercial semantics are free — value lives in execution.
Protocol-Commons gives agents a shared language of actions (analyze, summarize, fetch, …).
Protocol-Commercial answers a different question:
“How does value move when these actions are monetized?”
@commandlayer/commercial defines canonical economic verb schemas so that:
- payment, billing, and settlement are consistent across vendors
- receipts for paid work are typed and auditable
- runtimes and marketplaces interoperate instead of inventing their own silos
This repo is semantics-only:
- Schemas are always free
- No auth, no pricing, no routing
- Execution lives in Runtime
Commercial sits between semantics and execution:
+-----------------------------+
| Runtime | execution, metering, paywalls
+-------------▲---------------+
|
v
+-----------------------------+
| Protocol-Commercial | economic verbs + schemas
+-------------▲---------------+
|
v
+-----------------------------+
| Protocol-Commons | core verbs + schemas
+-----------------------------+
|
v
+-----------------------------+
| Agent-Cards | identity + discovery
+-----------------------------+
| Layer | Role |
|---|---|
| Protocol-Commons | Canonical verbs & schemas (machine intent grammar) |
| Agent-Cards | Identity, discovery, and invocation metadata |
| Protocol-Commercial | Canonical commercial/economic verbs (schemas & receipt defaults) |
| Runtime | Transport adapters, execution, and structured receipts |
- Schemas = roads
- Runtime = toll booths
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Commercial verbs | Price discovery, fulfillment, settlement |
| Request schemas | Payment instructions, billing metadata |
| Receipt schemas | Settlement proof, economic finality |
| Shared schemas | Reusable payment amount/settlement structures |
| Example fixtures | Validation & auditability |
| Checksums + manifest | Integrity surface for v1.0.0 |
This repository is semantics only. It does not define:
- auth or quotas
- pricing logic
- routing decisions
- provider selection
- x402 endpoints
Those are Runtime concerns.
Commercial defines the rules of value exchange —
not who gets paid, on which infra, or under what business model.
The initial stable set is five verbs:
| Category | Verb | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Payments | authorize |
Pre-authorize a payment for later capture |
| Commerce | checkout |
Capture funds and finalize an order |
| Commerce | purchase |
One-shot purchase (authorize + capture) |
| Fulfillment | ship |
Attach shipping / logistics state to an order |
| Risk & Trust | verify |
Verify a specific payment / settlement outcome |
Future versions may introduce additional verbs (quotes, refunds, subscriptions, etc.) under new minor/major versions.
Commercial and Commons share strict JSON Schema rules:
| Feature | Guarantee |
|---|---|
| Typed requests & receipts | Canonical envelope for all runtimes |
Deterministic $id |
Version immutability |
| No silent mutation | All changes logged + re-CID required |
| Valid + invalid test vectors | Reproducibility |
protocol-commercial/
├── schemas/
│ └── v1.0.0/
│ └── commercial/
│ └── <verb>/
│ ├── requests/<verb>.request.schema.json
│ └── receipts/<verb>.receipt.schema.json
│
├── examples/
│ └── v1.0.0/commercial/<verb>/
│ ├── valid/*.json
│ └── invalid/*.json
│
├── checksums.txt
├── manifest.json
├── SPEC.md
├── POLICY.md
├── GOVERNANCE.md
├── SECURITY.md
├── SECURITY_PROVENANCE.md
├── RESOLUTION.md
├── ONBOARDING.md
├── package.json
└── README.md
When v1.0.0 is published, it becomes normative:
schemas/v1.0.0/commercial/<verb>/
After that:
- Any mutation → new version
- All files → new CID + checksums
- ENS binds versioned schemas only
No breaking changes allowed in-place. No schema drift tolerated.
Integrity Notice — Protocol-Commercial v1.0.0 (Normative)
The canonical Protocol-Commercial schemas are pinned and immutable. Normative artifact:
- schemas/v1.0.0/
IPFS CID:
bafybeiftjpyw6lwy3zm52sipbbwryssg5hoyu2qhr53j5gaqjvwfgfc344
This CID defines the authoritative protocol state for Protocol-Commercial v1.0.0.
Any artifact not matching this CID is non-normative and untrusted.
To verify a local copy:
sha256sum -c checksums.txt
- All checksums must pass
- Any mismatch indicates a tampered or invalid artifact
- ENS TXT records must reference versioned schema URLs
- Runtimes must validate requests and receipts against these schemas
- Receipts must be verifiable against the pinned schema definitions
- Future versions must not modify v1.0.0 artifacts
Commercial TXT keys are optional until Runtime v1.0.0. Once locked, keys follow the same schema as Commons + Agent-Cards:
| TXT Key | Purpose | Required at v1.0.0 |
|---|---|---|
cl.verb |
Primary verb name | Yes |
cl.version |
Card/schema version | Yes |
cl.cid.schemas |
Commercial schemas CID | Yes |
cl.schema.request |
Canonical request schema URI | Yes |
cl.schema.receipt |
Canonical receipt schema URI | Yes |
cl.checksum.schema.request |
SHA-256 of request schema | Yes |
cl.checksum.schema.receipt |
SHA-256 of receipt schema | Yes |
cl.agentcard |
Binding to identity | Yes |
cl.owner |
Steward ENS name | Yes |
Strict JSON Schema validation:
npm install
npm run validate
Runs
- schema validation
- example fixtures
- integrity rules
Any failure = non-compliant.
Apache-2.0
- Schemas remain open and neutral
- Value creation happens only when agents execute
Where execution becomes value.
The Runtime enforces economic contracts defined by Commercial, and produces verifiable settlement receipts.
- Execute x402 entrypoints for every agent
- Meter usage — compute time, tokens, or call counts
- Gate access — auth, quotas, risk checks
- Settle value — stablecoins, credits, cross-vendor routing
- Issue auditable receipts — typed, traceable, final
- Monitor health & compliance — tracing + analytics
Runtime imports and enforces:
@commandlayer/commons— semantic validation@commandlayer/protocol-commercial— economic semantics@commandlayer/agent-cards— identity + routing
Schemas stay free — Runtime is the toll road for autonomous agents.
- Pre-v1.0.0
- Architecture + boundaries defined
- Economic verbs in-flight (unstable surface)
- No CID lock until schema freeze
- Breaking changes expected
Runtime targeting: alpha after Commercial v1.0.0 lock