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About / the authority problem

Autonomy without bounded authority is just uncontrolled access.

AI agents are becoming capable of buying services, invoking paid APIs and moving value. The question is no longer whether they can act. It is whether an organisation can define, enforce and prove what they were allowed to do.

CAPYN thesis

Agents can already pay. The missing layer is authority.

The agent authority problem

Six separate questions. One evidence chain.

Treating these as one vague “payment” problem hides the boundaries that make delegation safe.

01

Authentication

Who is the agent?

02

Authorization

What may the agent do?

03

Intent

What exact action was requested?

04

Policy

Under which constraints?

05

Execution

What actually happened?

06

Audit

Can the organisation prove it?

A precise category

An authority control plane—not another payment rail.

CAPYN starts immediately before execution and ends with evidence of what happened. That boundary keeps the product useful across networks and providers.

CAPYN is

An identity and mandate boundary for autonomous agents
A deterministic policy evaluator with explicit reason codes
A request-bound approval and replay-prevention layer
A chain-agnostic control point before execution
An append-oriented evidence trail

CAPYN is not

An unrestricted wallet for agents
A token, DAO or speculative network
A replacement for x402, Solana, Stripe or AP2
A browser-only policy interface
A claim that the v0.1 mock executor is production custody

Why start with money?

Financial authority makes every ambiguity visible.

Money forces precise answers about identity, limits, approval, concurrency, replay and audit. Solving those constraints creates a strong base for a more general capability layer.

Exact amounts

Integer minor units and explicit currency.

Explicit mandate

Named capabilities with time-bounded authority.

Constrained spend

Vendor and window limits before execution.

Provable outcome

Decision, approval and execution evidence.

Roadmap / boundary first

Earn the right to add complexity.

CAPYN will not move into blockchain, token or network complexity until the core authority system is solid and useful to real builders.

NOW

Developer MVP

Policy engine, API, request approvals, mock execution, SDK, dashboard, seeded scenarios and audit evidence.

NEXT

Public alpha

Public repository, hosted product site, concurrency demonstration, launch technical note and a small cohort of agent builders.

THEN

Real execution adapters

Provider idempotency, reconciliation and selected settlement integrations without moving authorization into the rail.

LATER

General authority

Extend the mandate and capability model beyond spending to other consequential operations performed by autonomous software.

Current status

CAPYN v0.1 is a working developer MVP.

Run it locally

Start with the decision point

Give the agent a mandate, not the treasury keys.

Run the four-scenario demo locally or inspect the working control plane in the browser.