Agent settlement is the control plane that decides when money should move in an agent workflow.
For Paybond, that means five things:
- A signed agreement boundary
- A committed budget
- Evidence attached as work happens
- A deterministic settlement check
- A receipt you can replay later
Short version
Execution can stay flexible. Settlement cannot. The more non-deterministic the workflow gets, the more important it is that the release or refund decision can be reproduced later.
The five-step model
A settlement lifecycle for real agent systems
This is the path Paybond optimizes for: clear agreements, bounded spend, attributable evidence, deterministic decisions.
1. Intent
Define the parties, budget, and completion predicate in a signed intent.
2. Escrow
Reserve the budget so downstream execution happens inside an explicit spend boundary.
3. Evidence
Attach signed artifacts, operator reviews, and tool outputs to the same lifecycle.
4. Evaluation
Run deterministic checks over the evidence to decide release or refund.
5. Receipts
Emit portable records for finance, audit, partners, and support.
Why normal payment flows break down
- A card charge only proves that money moved.
- A webhook only proves that one system emitted an event.
- A screenshot only proves that someone captured a moment out of context.
Agent commerce needs a stronger record: who agreed to what, what evidence was collected, and why the settlement decision was made.
What Paybond adds
- Signed intent boundary so the agreement does not drift.
- Outcome-verified escrow so release or refund is driven by completion rules.
- Tenant-scoped evidence handling so multi-tenant platforms do not cross-contaminate decisions.
- Portable receipts so downstream reviewers can verify what happened without database access.