x402 payments

x402 turns HTTP's reserved 402 Payment Required status into a working payment flow: an agent requests a resource, receives a price, pays, and retries — one protocol round trip, no checkout pages, no shared API keys.

The flow

1. Agent requests a paid resource: GET /reports/today
2. Server responds 402 Payment Required with a structured price quote
3. Agent signs payment authorization locally (its key, its device)
4. Agent retries the request with the payment header
5. Server verifies via the Mints facilitator and serves the resource

Day-one scope

At launch, agents make explicit payments with mints pay. Automatic sign-and-retry on 402 responses ships with the Forge SDK's agent.fetch() integration — the middleware, client, and facilitator are part of the Mints launch surface.

Accepting x402 payments

Merchants add the Mints x402 middleware to any HTTP service: declare a price for a route, and the middleware handles quoting, verification, and settlement receipts.