# RAILS: Verification-Native Clearing For Agentic Commerce

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.08790 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.08790/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 11 of its 29 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Jun 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arena](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05685/) (2023)
- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [AgentBench: Evaluating LLMs as Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.03688/) (2023)
- [BattleAgentBench: A Benchmark for Evaluating Cooperation and Competition Capabilities of Language Models in Multi-Agent Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15971/) (2024)
- [Inter-Agent Trust Models: A Comparative Study of Brief, Claim, Proof, Stake, Reputation and Constraint in Agentic Web Protocol Design-A2A, AP2, ERC-8004, and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.03434/) (2025)
- [Quantifying Trust: Financial Risk Management for Trustworthy AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.03976/) (2026)
- [A402: Binding Cryptocurrency Payments to Service Execution for Agentic Commerce](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01179/) (2026)
- [TessPay: Verify-then-Pay Infrastructure for Trusted Agentic Commerce](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.00213/) (2026)
- [The Surprising Universality of LLM Outputs: A Real-Time Verification Primitive](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.25634/) (2026)
- [A Protocol for Trustless Verification Under Uncertainty](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.00631/) (2025)
- [Machine Psychometrics: A Mathematical Psychology of Artificial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.23952/) (2026)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Protocol-Level Attacks on Agentic Commerce Platforms: A Cross-Platform Taxonomy, AIP-Bench, and Unified Defense](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21824/) (2026)
- [Agentic Commerce World: An Auditable and Verifiable Environment for Vibe Commerce](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.02441/) (2026)
- [Get In, Decide, Prove: A Merchant-Side Readiness Benchmark for Agentic Commerce](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17378/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Autonomous agents negotiate, purchase, deploy code, and move funds, but no neutral mechanism determines whether they met their delegated obligation, who is responsible when they did not, or which settlement action follows. This is the agentic clearing problem. Tool protocols (MCP), inter-agent communication (A2A), payment rails (x402), mandate and network agent protocols (AP2, Visa, Mastercard), and settlement-risk standards each assume that determination and none produce it. Clearing is the missing primitive. Payment is not clearing. Authorization is not clearing. LLM-as-judge evaluation is not clearing. Settlement-risk escrow is not clearing: it consumes clearing decisions. RAILS (Real-Time Agent Integrity & Ledger Settlement) is the integrity and clearing layer for agentic commerce, spanning a per-output reliability score, a published reliability record, and a clearing function that consumes them. The clearing protocol at its core closes that gap. Seven primitives (Obligation Object, Evidence Envelope, Verification Mesh, Clearing Decision, Settlement Instruction, Clearing Passport, Finality Rules), bound by a formal model of admissibility-graded verification, together yield a soundness property: no financially material settlement is supported by evidence below the obligation's admissibility floor. The property is falsifiable against the spec. We are not aware of a prior agent-commerce verification mechanism that states a property of this kind. The approaches nearest to it emit a pass, a delivery guarantee, a bare score, or an equilibrium. This paper specifies that clearing protocol.