How is a consent receipt different from OAuth scopes or terms acceptance?

OAuth scopes and terms acceptance are usually broad and token/session-based. A consent receipt is transaction-scoped evidence: it binds who delegated, which agent, what actions, and concrete limits (amount, merchant/category, time window). It is meant to produce a YES/NO decision at the moment of transaction.

What must be included in a consent receipt for agentic payments?

At minimum: delegator identifier, agent identifier, allowed actions, constraints (amount/currency, merchant/category, time window), expiry/revocation model, and a signature or proof binding the receipt to an issuer/authority.

How do you verify a consent receipt at transaction time?

Verification checks signature/provenance, expiry and revocation state, scope match to the proposed action, and constraints match (e.g., amount, merchant category). The verifier returns a binary YES/NO decision plus a proof object you can log.

Can consent receipts work offline?

Yes. If the receipt is signed, signature and constraint checks can be performed locally. Replay protection and revocation can be handled with freshness windows and/or deferred sync when connectivity returns.

Consent receipts: proof of permission for AI agent transactions

Q: What is a consent receipt?

A consent receipt is a machine-verifiable record that a user authorised an AI agent (or service) to perform specific actions within defined constraints. It’s designed to be checked at transaction time and later used as evidence in disputes and audits.

A consent receipt is the missing artifact in most agentic commerce stacks. It turns “the user allowed it” into a portable object that can be verified at the moment of transaction and stored as evidence without relying on screenshots or trust-me logs.

See a transaction-scoped YES/NO decision.

Run the live demo, then compare with the consent-receipt verifier prototype.

Try the live verification demo Consent receipt verifier (lab)

Issuer-side: authorization evidence

Prove a delegated agent was in-scope when an authorization was approved. Link the authorization decision to a verifiable consent object.

Merchant-side: checkout trust

Verify an agent’s permission before you create the order. Avoid accepting “agent traffic” that is unauthorised or replayed.

What a consent receipt is (and what it isn’t)

A consent receipt is not a UI screen, a terms checkbox, or a generic access token. It is a structured object whose purpose is to support a binary verification decision for a specific action.

Receipt: portable proof that consent was granted, with constraints.
Verification: transaction-time evaluation that returns YES/NO + a proof object you can log.
Replay safety: a receipt should be non-reusable for payment-like actions.

Minimum fields for an enterprise-safe receipt

To avoid ambiguity and legal/compliance gaps, a consent receipt should be able to answer “who, what, when, within which limits” without needing application logs.

Delegator: who granted permission (pseudonymous ID is fine).
Agent: which agent is authorized (stable identifier + key binding).
Action scope: allowed actions (e.g., payment.authorise).
Constraints: amount/currency, merchant/category, channel, time window.
Expiry + revocation model: how invalidation is handled at verification time.
Signature/proof: binding to an issuer/authority so verifiers can trust it.
Nonce / receipt id: support replay-safe verification.

How verification should work

Verification is a deterministic check that produces a stateless YES/NO outcome.

Input: receipt + proposed transaction context.

Checks: signature, expiry, revocation, scope match, constraint match, replay status.

Output: eligible: true|false + proof object for audit/logging.

Internal links

What is a consent receipt? (definition-first page)
Proof of permission (concept page)
Stateless verification (YES/NO decision model)
How businesses verify user consent for agentic transactions (ranking trends page)

FAQ

What is a consent receipt?

A machine-verifiable record that a user authorised an AI agent to perform actions within defined limits, designed to be checked at transaction time and stored as evidence.

How is this different from OAuth scopes?

OAuth scopes authorize API access. Consent receipts prove a specific delegation and its constraints, so a verifier can return YES/NO for a proposed transaction.

What’s the “proof object” used for?

Logging, disputes, and audits. It’s the evidence that verification happened and what it concluded, without requiring raw user interaction logs.

Can this be privacy-preserving?

Yes. Use pseudonymous identifiers, minimal fields, and verification designs that avoid storing or exposing PII while still producing auditable outcomes.