---
title: Introduction
description: Trustless agent payment authorization for the AI economy.
---

Delegare (Latin for "to delegate") is the first AP2-compliant payment authorization infrastructure for AI agents. It allows human users to grant spending power to AI agents by issuing Verifiable Digital Credentials (Intent Mandates), without ever handing over credit card numbers or private keys. Works with any AP2-compatible merchant globally. Runs on Stripe for fiat, Base for USDC/USDT.

## The Problem
AI agents today are limited by their inability to perform economic actions. Existing solutions require either:
1. **Full Custody:** Giving an agent your credit card or wallet seed phrase (massive security risk).
2. **Pre-funding:** Locking capital into a per-agent wallet (capital inefficient).

## The Delegare Solution
Delegare introduces **Intent Mandates** — cryptographically signed tokens that enforce strict spending limits, merchant allowlists, and time-based expirations.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Human-in-the-loop Setup" icon="user-shield">
    Users authorize an intent mandate once via a secure UI.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Agent-Led Execution" icon="robot">
    Agents use the `intentMandate` to authorize payments autonomously.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Dual-Rail Settlement" icon="bridge">
    Settle via Stripe (Fiat) or Base L2 (Crypto) with automatic fallback.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Atomic Limits" icon="gauge-high">
    DynamoDB-backed atomic counters prevent overspending and race conditions.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Multi-Protocol Discovery" icon="magnifying-glass">
    `@delegare/x402` emits x402 v2 and MPP headers simultaneously — auto-indexed on [market.delegare.dev](https://market.delegare.dev), [agentic.market](https://agentic.market), and [mppscan.com](https://mppscan.com).
  </Card>
  <Card title="AP2 Mandates" icon="key">
    First AP2-compliant merchant middleware — scoped agent spending with cryptographic authorization.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## How it works
1. **Merchant** requests a setup session.
2. **User** authorizes limits (e.g., "$50/mo total, max $10 per tx").
3. **Agent** receives a `intentMandate`.
4. **Agent** calls `/charge` with the token whenever it needs to buy something.
5. **Vault** validates limits atomically and executes the payment on the best available rail.
