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GLOSSARY TERM

PEAC Protocol

PEAC (Policy, Evidence, Access, Compliance) is an open protocol for file-based policy discovery and verifiable receipts. Agents discover policies via /.well-known/peac.txt and present cryptographic PEAC-Receipt tokens as auditable proof of compliance.

What PEAC stands for

  • Policy - Machine-readable terms published at /.well-known/peac.txt
  • Evidence - Cryptographic receipts proving compliance with policies
  • Access - Verifiable proof of payment or authorization for resource access
  • Compliance - Auditable trail for regulatory and business requirements

How PEAC works

  1. Policy discovery - Agent fetches /.well-known/peac.txt to discover pricing, terms, and payment methods
  2. Payment flow - Agent makes payment through specified method (HTTP 402, x402, Stripe, etc.)
  3. Receipt generation - Payment provider issues a PEAC-Receipt as a signed JWS token
  4. Receipt presentation - Agent presents receipt in PEAC-Receipt header for verified access

PEAC-Receipt format

A PEAC-Receipt is a JWS (JSON Web Signature) token containing payment proof, access rights, and compliance metadata. It can be verified offline using the issuer’s public key.

# Example PEAC-Receipt header
PEAC-Receipt: eyJhbGciOiJFZERTQSIsImtpZCI6IjIwMjUtMDktMS...

# Decoded payload (example)
{
  "iss": "originary.xyz",
  "sub": "client-agent-123",
  "iat": 1699564800,
  "exp": 1699568400,
  "resource": "/api/content",
  "amount": "1.00",
  "currency": "USD",
  "payment_id": "pay_xyz789"
}

PEAC vs x402

PEAC and x402 are complementary protocols:

  • PEAC - File-based policy discovery (/.well-known/peac.txt) and receipt format (PEAC-Receipt JWS)
  • x402 - HTTP 402-based payment flow with challenge-response pattern for inline payment negotiation

Many implementations use both: PEAC for policy discovery and x402 for payment enforcement.

Why verifiable receipts matter

  • Audit trails - Cryptographic proof of payment and access for compliance
  • Offline verification - JWS signatures can be verified without calling issuer APIs
  • Chargeback protection - Signed receipts prevent payment disputes
  • Attribution proof - Agents can prove they paid for content usage rights

Learn more