---
language: en
title: "Agent Payments Protocol"
description: "AP2 uses verifiable mandates to authorize checkout and payment by agents. Learn how they link to the transaction and about the limits of specification v0.2."
canonical: "https://tropk.ai/en/resources/glossary/agent-payments-protocol"
last_modified: "2026-10-12T16:10:35.903Z"
---

# Agent Payments Protocol

Reviewed on 2026-10-07.

## What it means

Agent Payments Protocol, or AP2, is an open protocol for proving authorization in agent-led transactions. In specification v0.2, the Checkout Mandate authorizes the defined checkout, while the Payment Mandate authorizes its payment. These verifiable objects link permissions to the transaction and distribute responsibilities among the agent, seller, credential provider, and processor.

## Why it matters for marketing

For commerce marketing, AP2 helps assess claims of autonomous purchasing. A product recommendation or an intention written in a conversation does not demonstrate permission to spend. The team should understand which conditions the buyer authorized, who verifies those conditions, and what evidence links the authorization to the items and amount shown at checkout.

## Example in practice

Imagine a buyer authorizes an agent to purchase a chair within a spending limit. The agent assembles a checkout whose total exceeds that limit. By comparing the open mandates with the closed checkout, the verifier should reject the incompatible authorization. The store would need to address that rejection before trying to charge for the chair.

## How to apply or verify

Ask the payments lead to identify the checkout and payment mandates, the signatures, and the link to the checkout signed by the seller. In autonomous mode, also check the restrictions in the open mandates and whether they match the closed ones. Keep records of acceptance or rejection; they provide different evidence from the authorization initially granted.

## Important distinctions

AP2 functions as a security resource within a commerce protocol; catalog and checkout-update APIs are outside its scope. A valid mandate does not prove that payment has settled. v0.2 distinguishes direct approval from autonomous action under authorized conditions, but leaves delegation of mandates between agents outside the specification. Commercial support requires separate verification.

## Sources and references

- [AP2 — Agent Payments Protocol Documentation](<https://ap2-protocol.org/>) — Google / projeto AP2
- [Agentic Payment Protocol (v0.2) — Specification](<https://ap2-protocol.org/ap2/specification/>) — Google / projeto AP2

## Continue a leitura

- [Agents with verifiable signatures](</en/resources/glossary/agents-with-verifiable-signatures>)
- [Agentic Commerce Protocol](</en/resources/glossary/agentic-commerce-protocol>)
- [Universal Commerce Protocol](</en/resources/glossary/universal-commerce-protocol>)

## About the author

[Vinicius Pacheco](</en/team/vinicius-pacheco>)

Responsible for Tropk’s technical content, focusing on crawling, indexing, structured data, and agent access to content.

---

[All pages in Markdown](<https://tropk.ai/sitemap.md>)