SAAX Protocol: A Commitment Layer for Agentic Commerce
When an AI agent buys something and the purchase goes wrong, the parties usually discover the same problem: there is no structured record of what was actually committed. The authorization was valid. The credentials were real. The merchant fulfilled a legitimate order. The buyer is looking at a charge for something they never intended to purchase. Card networks were built for a two-party dispute.…
When an AI agent makes a purchase, it can be difficult to determine whether the agent actually committed to the purchase and if the merchant fulfilled it. This is due to the lack of a structured record of commitments in the current authorization and settlement layers. The SAAX Protocol aims to address this issue by creating a vendor-neutral commitment lifecycle for autonomous commerce.
The SAAX commitment records five things before execution begins: authority, terms, acceptance criteria, evidence requirements, and recovery policy. These records are issued before payment and evidence is attached as references. The protocol also defines outcome and finality states for each commitment.
A unique aspect of the SAAX Protocol is its handling of failed agent attempts. If the agent's first attempt leaves the machine without a response, the protocol rule is that an unknown outcome is a status check, not another POST request. The agent queries the commitment state before retrying, with possible outcomes including safe to retry, waiting, fulfilled, or failed. On the merchant side, they must write in_flight to durable storage before processing the request to prevent double processing.
The reference implementation of the protocol includes a Spec, conformance suite, documentation, and a MCP endpoint for testing. The protocol is vendor-neutral and open for comment, making it suitable for agents that transact across various rails and systems. The Router is one implementation of the protocol, using x402 and MPP for settlement, but the Protocol itself does not require any specific rail.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.