The misunderstanding to avoid
The product list inside ADI is not meant to become the merchant agent's whole operating environment. The merchant agent can still live in Shopify, WooCommerce, a custom shop, a marketplace tool, or the merchant's own commerce stack.
ADI plays a different role. It holds the merchant-approved reference that can be checked when an agent sale turns into an accountable transaction.
Two catalogs, two jobs
The merchant shop catalog is operational: it powers storefronts, search, merchandising, promotions, stock workflows, and fulfillment.
The ADI trust catalog is evidential: it records which products the merchant has approved for governed agent commerce.
The merchant agent may use the shop catalog to talk to customers, but the final AP2 cart must still match the ADI trust catalog before ADI treats it as payable.
What happens during an agent sale
Merchant agent sale with ADI trust validation
The merchant agent sells in the merchant environment. ADI validates the resulting cart against the merchant-approved catalog before payment authorization.
sequenceDiagram
participant Buyer as Buyer Agent
participant MerchantAgent as Merchant Agent
participant Shop as Merchant Shop
participant ADI as ADI Trust Layer
participant Issuing as Prepaid Issuing Card
Buyer->>MerchantAgent: Ask for product or offer
MerchantAgent->>Shop: Read operational catalog and stock
Shop-->>MerchantAgent: Offer details
MerchantAgent-->>Buyer: Proposed cart
Buyer->>ADI: Submit AP2 cart and payment mandate
ADI->>ADI: Match SKU, merchant, active state, price, and stock reference
alt Cart matches trust catalog and wallet/card policy
ADI->>Issuing: Authorize prepaid virtual card spend
Issuing-->>ADI: Authorization and transaction events
ADI-->>Buyer: Receipt and audit trail
else Cart does not match trust catalog
ADI-->>Buyer: Decline with evidence
end What ADI verifies
The payee is tied to a known merchant organization.
Each cart item carries a SKU that exists in the merchant-approved ADI catalog.
The product is active and belongs to that merchant organization.
The quantity is within the available trusted stock reference.
The payable amount is calculated from the trusted catalog reference instead of blindly trusting the selling agent.
What this protects against
Without a separate trust catalog, a merchant agent can accidentally or maliciously offer products that no longer exist, prices that the merchant did not approve, or bundles that cannot be fulfilled. A buyer agent would see a plausible conversation but no independent proof that the commercial object is legitimate.
With ADI in the loop, the final payable cart is no longer just a text claim from an agent. It becomes a checked object bound to a merchant, a catalog entry, a mandate, a wallet/card policy, and an audit trail.
The hardening path
Catalog entries should become versioned so receipts can prove exactly which approved product state was used.
Price and currency checks should be explicit at mandate time so the agent cannot smuggle a different payable amount.
Catalog changes should be auditable because changing a trusted product is a governance event, not just content editing.
High-value commerce can add signed catalog snapshots so the merchant-approved offer is cryptographically bound to the transaction evidence.