Concepts

Status: Draft 0.4, pre-release. Section numbers in brackets, such as [9.3], point to spec/rctp-draft-0.4.md. "Binding" points to spec/v0.2-binding.md.

RCTP is built from a handful of ideas. Each one below starts in plain language, then gives the technical detail.

flowchart LR
  Seller((Seller)) -->|"consents on"| AS["Marketplace<br/>authorization server"]
  AS -->|"Agent Grant (held by the platform)"| Agent["Seller agent"]
  Seller -->|"sets terms and approves<br/>on the hosted page"| EP["Enforcement point"]
  Profile["Operator UCP profile"] -.->|"names who runs, publishes keys"| Agent
  Agent -->|"signed call + access token"| EP
  Buyer["Buyer agent"] -->|"signed offer with Deal Terms"| EP
  EP -->|"introspects every call"| AS
  EP -->|"decision: auto, ask or forbid"| Agent
  EP -->|"writes"| Record[("Hash-chained deal record")]

#Agent Grant

In plain words. An Agent Grant is the seller's permission for one agent. On their marketplace's consent page the seller sees the agent, who runs it, each verb it may use and whether that verb needs their approval, and when the permission ends. The page asks for no prices. The marketplace keeps the grant; the agent only gets an access token that works with its own key. The seller can revoke it at any time, and the agent's next call fails.

Technical detail.

#Listing Terms and term sets

In plain words. Listing Terms are the seller's rules for one item: the lowest price they take (the floor), how it can be delivered and paid for, when the listing closes, and how many days the seller has to deliver. The seller fills them in on a page the marketplace hosts, when they approve the listing. The floor is private: the platform keeps it, and never discloses it to any agent. The seller's agent may propose terms, the floor included, which only pre-fill the seller's form; what the seller confirms is stored. A term set says which terms a kind of item has and what values are allowed.

Technical detail.

#Offer and Deal Terms

In plain words. An offer is a price plus how the item will be delivered and paid for. A buyer agent makes one; the seller's agent may counter, and the buyer answers a counter with a new offer that replaces it. Every offer has an expiry. When the seller accepts, the listing is reserved for that buyer, who gets a single-use checkout to open the deal.

Technical detail.

#Decision

In plain words. Every governed call gets one of three answers from the enforcement point: done (auto), waiting for the seller (ask), or refused (forbid). A refusal always names one registered reason, so the agent can act on it without a human reading an error message.

Technical detail.

#Verb, scope and tier

In plain words. A verb is something an agent can do, such as accept an offer. A tier is the rule for it: auto means the agent may do it, ask means only after the seller approves. The seller chooses tiers when they grant the agent, within what the marketplace allows. Signing a contract and changing the seller's account are never allowed, whatever anyone chooses.

Technical detail.

#Approval

In plain words. When a verb is ask, the enforcement point holds it and asks the seller. The seller sees the exact action, amount and text, and says yes or no with their own passkey. For a listing, the same page is where the seller types in the terms. The partner's app can show the page, but only the seller's key can sign the answer. If the seller does not answer in time, the answer is no.

Technical detail.

#Deal record and events

In plain words. Every decision, every approval and every step that moves money or responsibility is written into a signed, hash-chained record: the buyer's money is held, the item shipped, the buyer accepted it, the money was released. Each event is signed by the party that saw it, and the enforcement point refuses events that come too early, such as a release before the buyer accepts.

Technical detail.

#UCP profile (who runs an agent)

In plain words. Every operator, and every gateway, publishes a small public document saying who it is and which keys it signs with. An operator's profile names the company, its country, an incident contact and how fast it responds. The marketplace only lets in agents whose operator it has onboarded.

Technical detail.

#Enforcement point

In plain words. The enforcement point sits in front of the marketplace API and checks every agent call against the seller's grant and terms. It decides; the agent does not. Prompts, listing text and request bodies cannot change its answer. It also writes a signed record of every decision, including every refusal.

Technical detail.

#Marketplace authorization server

In plain words. The marketplace's login service runs the consent page, issues and revokes grants, and tells the enforcement point on every call whether a grant is still good. It never sees or stores prices.

Technical detail.

#Other terms

Source: docs/concepts.md