← All guides · Reviewed November 2026
What Is an Agent Receipt (Proof an Action Was Approved)?
The short answer
An agent receipt is a pre-transaction authorization record: who approved an AI agent's action, for how much, in what declared scope, sealed before the agent acts. Agentic Receipts captures the approver, the agent (name, version, operator), the action, the amount and currency, and the scope — then appends it to a SHA-256 hash-chained ledger under a public receipt id. Receipt fields as defined in Agentic Receipts' receipt engine, November 2026. Seal one with the free issuer.
What fields does a receipt carry?
| Field | What it records |
|---|---|
| approver | Who approved — a user id or email. Required; a receipt refuses to seal without one |
| agent_name / agent_version / agent_operator | Which agent may act, which build of it, and who operates it |
| action_description | What the agent is approved to do, in plain language (up to 2,000 characters) |
| amount_cents / currency | The approved ceiling, in one of eight currencies: USD, EUR, GBP, BZD, JPY, CAD, AUD, SGD |
| scope | The declared allowed actions, one per line, up to 50 — the boundary the approval grants |
| expiry_at | Optional. An authorization that lapses is an authorization that cannot be reused forever |
| identifier_hash / identifier_masked | An optional sensitive identifier, kept only as its SHA-256 hash with a masked last-four display — the full value never touches the database |
| receipt id / chain entry | AGR- plus the issue date and a six-digit sequence, and the receipt's position and hashes in the owner's ledger — how the seal works is explained here |
Why before the action, not after?
Because after is a log, and a log can be argued with. A receipt captured at approval time fixes the terms while everyone still agrees on them: this person approved this agent to do this thing, up to this amount, inside this scope, until this date. When the payment is later disputed, the question is no longer "what probably happened" but "what does the receipt say" — and the receipt's chain entry shows it was not rewritten since. Job templates make the common cases faster: pay a vendor, issue a refund, publish content, share data, send a contract, change an account — each naming the extra fields that job needs before the receipt will seal (the free plan includes the pay-a-vendor template; Pro unlocks all six).
What is a receipt not?
Not a legal instrument, and the platform prints the honest scope on every surface: evidence supporting disputes — not legal protection or legal advice. A receipt is the paperwork layer: it makes an approval attributable, bounded and tamper-evident. Whether that wins a given dispute depends on the dispute. What it removes is the fog — which is where most agent-payment arguments live. The approval patterns that feed receipts — email requests, quorums, co-signs — are compared in Who Approved That Agent Action?
Frequently asked questions
What is an agent receipt?
A pre-transaction authorization record for an AI agent: who approved the action (the approver), which agent may act (name, version and operator), what it may do (the action description), for how much (amount and currency), inside what declared scope, and until when (expiry). Agentic Receipts seals each one into a SHA-256 hash-chained ledger at the moment of approval — before the agent acts, not after.
What fields does an agent receipt carry?
Approver, agent name, agent version, agent operator, action description, amount (stored in cents) and currency, the declared scope as a list of allowed actions (up to 50), an optional expiry, and the creation timestamp. A sensitive identifier, if supplied, is never stored in plaintext: only its SHA-256 hash is kept, with a masked display showing the last four characters.
Is an agent receipt a legal document?
No, and every surface says so: receipts are evidence supporting disputes — not legal protection or legal advice. A receipt proves who approved what, when, in what scope, in a form whose tampering is detectable. What that proof is worth in a dispute is for the parties and their advisers.
How much does it cost to issue a receipt?
One guest receipt per visitor per day is free, with no account. A free account issues 10 receipts per month with the hash-chained ledger and chain-verification status. Pro ($29/month) is unlimited and adds the approval flows and exports; Team ($79/month) adds seats, quorum approvals and mandate export.
When is the receipt created — before or after the action?
Before. That is the design: the authorization is captured at the moment a human approves, ahead of the agent touching money or anything consequential. Later events — a co-signature, a use confirmation, a revocation — are appended to the same ledger as new chained entries, never edits to the original.