Facilitators

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Core responsibilities of a facilitator

• Verify payments: Validate incoming payment payloads from agents to ensure they meet the merchant’s price and criteria.
• Settle payments: Submit verified transactions to the blockchain, monitor for confirmation, and update the merchant on completion.
• Protocol consistency: Standardize the verification and settlement flow across different merchants and networks.
• Provide responses: Return real-time verification and settlement results so merchants can fulfill requests confidently.
• Expose APIs: Offer stable /verify, /settle, and /list endpoints for merchants and agents.

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Key benefits of using a facilitator

• Reduces operational complexity: Merchants don’t need to maintain blockchain nodes or implement custom payment logic.
• Faster integration: Onboarding is as simple as configuring your middleware to point to a facilitator.
• Network flexibility: Facilitators like Corbits support multiple chains and tokens (Base, Solana, etc.), letting you reach more buyers.
• Service discovery: Facilitators like Corbits help agents programmatically discover available paid endpoints.

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How facilitators fit the payment flow

1. Agent calls a paid endpoint and receives a 402 Payment Required challenge.
2. Merchant submits the agent’s payment payload and requirements to the facilitator’s /verify endpoint.
3. Facilitator checks signatures, amounts, and nonces; returns a verification result.
4. Merchant, when ready, sends a /settle request; facilitator submits the transaction on-chain and confirms.
5. Once payment is settled, the merchant fulfills the request.