TORII

Know Your Agent

AI agents are getting wallets. Someone has to set the limits.

A concept · March 2026

01 · The shift

Agents are starting to spend money.

$3–5T

in shopping run by AI agents by 2030.

McKinsey, 2025 ↗
$31.43

of eggs an AI agent bought without asking first.

OpenAI Operator, 2025 ↗
40%+

of agent projects will be scrapped by 2027, partly over weak risk controls.

Gartner, 2025 ↗

02 · The idea

One gate between agents and your money.

AI agentClaude · GPT · custom

TORII

  • Who is this agent?
  • Is this tool allowed?
  • Within budget?
  • Pay the tool
  • Log the call
Paid toolssearch · data · compute

You write the rules. The agent works inside them.

rules: $5 / session$0.50 / call10 calls / minno crypto trading

03 · Under the hood · design sketch

What happens in one paid call.

  1. 01 tool call + agent token
  2. 02 verify token · acts for Asmit
  3. 03 policy: tool allowed · rate ok
  4. 04 forward call
  5. 05 402 · price $0.12
  6. 06 hold $0.12 · under cap
  7. 07 retry with signed payment
  8. 08 verify + settle
  9. 09 200 · result
  10. 10 charge hold · append log
  11. 11 result
  • 01Identity

    Short-lived agent tokens that name the human they act for.

    inspired by OAuth token exchangeDPoP
  • 02Policy

    Rules as code, checked on every call.

    inspired by CedarOPA
  • 03Ledger

    Hold the money first. Charge only what was used.

    inspired by TigerBeetlecard holds
  • 04Payment

    Pay per call over plain HTTP.

    inspired by x402AP2 mandates
  • 05Audit

    An append-only log nobody can quietly edit.

    inspired by Certificate Transparency

04 · Impact · simulated

A stuck agent stops at $5. Not $5,000.

No gate

$5,000+
11,111 calls
$01,000× over budget

With Torii

$4.95
11 calls, then blocked
$0$5 budget
Blockedsession cap $5

Simulation: an agent stuck retrying a $0.45 paid API call.

05 · Where it fits

The pieces are shipping. Who holds the rules?

  1. StripeAgent cards with spend limits
  2. Coinbasex402: agents pay over HTTP
  3. GoogleAP2 payment mandates
  4. CoinbaseAgent wallets with caps
  5. ToriiMy concept: one gate for identity, budget, pay and log
  6. KongTool gateway with agent identity
  7. AWSAgent payments with spend caps
  8. Ant, Visa, MastercardBegin work on a shared "Know Your Agent" framework

Since this concept, AWS and Kong shipped pieces of it, and Ant, Visa and Mastercard began work on a shared framework. But spending rules still live in separate places. The open question is who writes them: the platform, or you.

The human controls policy.
The agent controls execution.

More work →