APS Governance Adapter for Stripe Agent Payments

The authorization layer between your agent and Stripe.

Stripe handles money movement. APS handles who authorized it, within what limits, and produces the audit trail. Neither replaces the other.

The Problem

Stripe's Agent Toolkit gives agents access to payment tools. Stripe's Restricted API Keys (RAKs) control which Stripe APIs the agent can call. But RAKs don't answer:

• Who authorized this specific agent to make this specific purchase?
• What's the spending ceiling for this task, not just this API key?
• Which merchants is this agent allowed to transact with?
• Does a human need to approve transactions above a threshold?
• Can we trace this payment back to the human principal who delegated authority?

APS commerce delegation answers all five.

How It Works

Agent wants to pay for API credits
       │
       ▼
┌─────────────────────────┐
│  APS 4-Gate Preflight   │
│                         │
│  1. Passport valid?     │  ← Agent identity (Ed25519)
│  2. Scope authorized?   │  ← Delegation includes commerce
│  3. Budget remaining?   │  ← Spend tracking per delegation
│  4. Merchant allowed?   │  ← Allowlist check
│                         │
│  All gates pass? ──────►│──── Stripe processes payment
│  Any gate fails? ──────►│──── Payment blocked, receipt emitted
└─────────────────────────┘
       │
       ▼
  Signed ActionReceipt
  (links payment → delegation → human principal)

Works With

• Stripe Agent Toolkit — wraps LangChain/CrewAI/Vercel AI SDK tools
• Stripe MPP (Machine Payments Protocol) — governs agent-to-service payments
• Stripe x402 — governs USDC micropayments on Base
• Stripe SPTs (Shared Payment Tokens) — governs agentic network tokens

Quick Start

npm install @aeoess/stripe-governance agent-passport-system

import { governMPPPayment } from '@aeoess/stripe-governance'
import { createPassport, createCommerceDelegation } from 'agent-passport-system'

// Human principal sets up agent with commerce authority
const delegation = createCommerceDelegation({
  delegatorKeys: humanKeys,
  agentPublicKey: agentKeys.publicKey,
  spendLimit: 50000,                    // $500.00
  currency: 'usd',
  allowedMerchants: ['api.openai.com'], // only approved vendors
  requireHumanApproval: true,
  humanApprovalThreshold: 10000,        // human approves above $100
})

// Agent receives MPP payment request from a service
const result = await governMPPPayment(config, {
  amount: 4999,
  currency: 'usd',
  merchant: 'api.openai.com',
  resource: 'GPT-4 API credits',
  paymentMethod: 'spt',
})

// result.authorized === true
// result.receipt links this payment to the delegation chain
// result.remainingBudget === 45001 ($450.01)

Integration with Stripe Agent Toolkit

import { createStripeAgentToolkit } from '@stripe/agent-toolkit/langchain'
import { governStripeTools } from '@aeoess/stripe-governance'

// Standard Stripe setup
const toolkit = await createStripeAgentToolkit({
  secretKey: process.env.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY
})

// Wrap with APS governance
const governedTools = governStripeTools(toolkit.getTools(), {
  passport: agentPassport,
  delegation: commerceDelegation,
  onHumanApprovalRequired: async (request) => {
    // Send Slack notification, wait for human response
    return await notifyHumanViaSlack(request)
  },
  onReceipt: (receipt) => {
    // Log to your audit system
    await auditLogger.log(receipt)
  },
})

// Use governedTools with your LangChain agent
// Every payment tool call goes through APS preflight first

Financial Observability

import { getAgentBudgetStatus } from '@aeoess/stripe-governance'

const status = getAgentBudgetStatus(config)
// {
//   agentId: 'agent-procurement-abc123',
//   spendLimit: 500.00,
//   spentAmount: 249.99,
//   remainingBudget: 250.01,
//   utilizationPercent: 49.99,
//   humanApprovalThreshold: 100.00,
//   approvedMerchants: ['api.openai.com', 'vercel.com']
// }

Run the Demo

npx tsx examples/stripe-governance/demo.ts

Shows four scenarios: auto-approved payment, human-approval-required payment, unauthorized merchant (blocked), and budget exhaustion (blocked).

Architecture

APS provides the authorization layer. Stripe provides the settlement layer.

| Concern | Who Handles It | |---------|---------------| | Agent identity | APS (Ed25519 passport) | | Spend authorization | APS (commerce delegation) | | Merchant allowlisting | APS (delegation scope) | | Human escalation | APS (approval threshold) | | Audit trail | APS (signed receipts) | | Money movement | Stripe (MPP/SPT/x402) | | Payment processing | Stripe (PaymentIntents API) | | Fraud detection | Stripe (Radar) | | Tax calculation | Stripe (Tax) |

License

Apache-2.0. Part of the Agent Passport System.