FIELD NOTE 02

Treat HTTP 402 as a negotiation

A practical model for resolving price, asset, network, and policy before settlement.

Published June 19, 2026

A challenge, not a checkout

An HTTP 402 response can describe payment terms in a machine-readable way. The agent still needs to compare those terms with its policy before accepting them.

Normalize before evaluation

Merchant identity, amount, asset, network, and resource should be converted into a stable intent envelope. Untrusted response fields never move directly into signing.

Resolve explicitly

The result should be allow, review, or deny. Explicit states make retries, approvals, and observability predictable across tools and merchants.