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paid-tool-quality-thresholds.md

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AgentPay MCP paid-tool quality thresholds

Strale's May 4 launch signal is clear: paid MCP buyers are going to ask for score gates, not only catalog listings.

A paid tool directory can be useful and still be unsafe for wallet signing. The buyer needs four checks before any x402 call:

  1. A fresh tool-quality score with the exact field used by the directory.
  2. A provider-health snapshot for the provider that will receive payment.
  3. A minimum-quality policy owned by the buyer, not the seller.
  4. A fail-closed approval gate that blocks signing when the proof is stale, below threshold, or missing x402 metadata.

Proof shape

The fixture at docs/fixtures/paid-tool-quality-threshold-strale-2026-05-04.json uses:

  • score.current, score.min_required, score.measured_at, and score.stale_after_seconds.
  • dimension scores for reliability, availability, receipt integrity, and policy fit.
  • provider_health.status, success_rate_24h, stale_streak, and receipt_state.
  • x402 payment metadata: network, asset, payTo, and max amount.
  • approval_gate.fail_closed=true plus a buyer approval decision.

Buyer policy

AgentPay treats the buyer policy as the final authority. If a directory says min_required=75 and the buyer policy says minimumScore=85, the buyer policy wins.

The helper in src/utils/paid-tool-quality-threshold.ts denies payment when:

  • the score or proof is older than the buyer's maximum age,
  • the score is older than the proof's own stale window,
  • the score falls below the buyer threshold,
  • provider health is degraded or below the required success rate,
  • receipt state is not verified when verified receipts are required,
  • x402 network, asset, or payTo are outside the allowlist,
  • human approval is required but missing.

That gives AgentPay parity with score-threshold catalogs while keeping signing authority on the buyer side.

Verification

Run:

npm run typecheck
npm test -- paid-tool-quality-threshold

Expected behavior: stale or below-threshold proofs return decision: "deny" and never permit x402 signing.