# TessPay: Verify-then-Pay Infrastructure for Trusted Agentic Commerce

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00213 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.00213/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Agent threats, guardrails and governance, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 3 of its 17 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Jan 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Agent threats, guardrails and governance](https://mlsanity.com/agents/agent-threats-guardrails-and-governance/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [PROV-AGENT: Unified Provenance for Tracking AI Agent Interactions in Agentic Workflows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.02866/) (2025)
- [Agentic JWT: A Secure Delegation Protocol for Autonomous AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.13597/) (2025)
- [VET Your Agent: Towards Host-Independent Autonomy via Verifiable Execution Traces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.15892/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [SoK: Security of Autonomous LLM Agents in Agentic Commerce](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.15367/) (2026)
- [RAILS: Verification-Native Clearing For Agentic Commerce](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.08790/) (2026)
- [Blockchain Empowered Trustworthy Agent Networks: Foundations, Taxonomy, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.04626/) (2026)
- [TessIndex: Capability Verified Identity System for the Agent Economy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.21942/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The global economy is entering the era of Agentic Commerce, where autonomous agents can discover services, negotiate prices, and transact value. However adoption towards agentic commerce faces a foundational trust gap: current systems are built for direct human interactions rather than agent-driven operations. It lacks core primitives across three critical stages of agentic transactions. First, Task Delegation lacks means to translate user intent into defined scopes, discover appropriate agents, and securely authorize actions. Second, Payment Settlement for tasks is processed before execution, lacking verifiable evidence to validate the agent's work. Third, Audit Mechanisms fail to capture the full transaction lifecycle, preventing clear accountability for disputes. While emerging standards address fragments of this trust gap, there still remains a critical need for a unified infrastructure that binds the entire transaction lifecycle. To resolve this gap, we introduce TessPay, a unified infrastructure that replaces implicit trust with a 'Verify-then-Pay' architecture. It is a two plane architecture separating control and verification from settlement. TessPay operationalizes trust across four distinct stages: Before execution, agents are anchored in a canonical registry and user intent is captured as verifiable mandates, enabling stakeholder accountability. During execution, funds are locked in escrow while the agent executes the task and generates cryptographic evidence (TLS Notary, TEE etc.) to support Proof of Task Execution (PoTE). At settlement, the system verifies this evidence and releases funds only when the PoTE satisfies verification predicates; modular rail adapters ensure this PoTE-gated escrow remains chain-agnostic across heterogeneous payment rails. After settlement, TessPay preserves a tamper-evident audit trail to enable clear accountability for dispute resolution.