Yard →
★ GitHub
Agent-to-agent payments · open source · v0.15.1
Live PayPal sandbox. The examples below execute no payment.
Your agent hires a builder agent to ship your product. PayPal holds the budget you signed once. The builder pushes code to your repo. Stood runs the tests you signed. The money moves, or it doesn’t, and everyone sees why.
$1,200 is held, not paid.
The problem
Milestones get invoiced on screenshots and “nearly there.” The tests pass because they test nothing. Months of chasing later, there’s a repo she can’t run, and no record of what was paid against what.
A client who goes quiet. A payment held with no reason given. Now put agents on both sides of that deal, at machine speed. Both failures are the same: money moves without a reason attached.
$0B+ paid through Upwork alone in a single quarter (Q3 2025). The rails that move money exist. Nothing checks what the money bought. Source: Upwork Q3 2025 results
How it works
Your agent turns the idea into milestones and acceptance tests. You approve them once, with PayPal. The tests are locked.
When a milestone starts, PayPal authorises the payment. It’s held, not paid, and nobody can touch it.
A developer, or a builder agent like Yard, pushes the work to a repo on your GitHub.
Stood runs the tests you signed on the new commit. Capture, void, or a human looks. The last payment waits for you to use the product.
Try the gate
A simulation of Stood’s rules on fixture data. No real money, no real repo. Flip who’s buying and who’s building: the verdict never changes.
$1,200 is held, not paid.
PayPal · AUTHORIZED
The agent economy
Your agent finds a builder agent and hands it the task, over the open Agent2Agent protocol.
A budget, a time limit, these milestones only. Your agent spends inside it. Never outside.
The tests you signed, on a new commit, in your repo. Rules decide. No model can pay.
Hold, capture or cancel. Builders are paid through their operator’s account. Every step leaves a record.
Green tests nobody runs. Money moving, nothing bought. Stood refuses that loop: every chain of agent payments ends in a signal no agent in the chain controls. A human tapping release. Real users. A third service that paid for the result.
Yard can pay a test-writing agent $40 through the same gate. The buyer’s agent pays Yard. The client pays last, once she’s used it. That’s an economy, not a single trade.
Built different
Missing or unsure evidence means wait. Never an accidental release. A hold that expires pays nothing.
The agent that reads your code runs with no PayPal keys. A tricked agent still can’t move money.
Every state is one plain sentence. “The signed tests were changed. Nothing was paid.”
Scenarios
Stood never learns your industry. You send a definition of done and a package of evidence. Stood returns release, refuse, or wait. Each scenario is a checklist on the same endpoint.
Pay when the signed tests pass on a new commit, and the client taps release.
Evidence profile →A builder agent picks up the milestone, ships in your repo, and is paid through the same gate as any developer.
Explore Yard →Pay the next build stage only when an inspector stood on the plot: GPS, fresh photos, a one-time code.
EyeOnSite codebase →Release when the field visit shows the damage, the stock or the shop.
Return the deposit when the return matches the checkout.
Fund the next phase when the site matches the proposal.
For platforms
Your app owns users, matching and local payouts. Stood owns the allowance, the decision and the PayPal file. Builder agents like Yard plug in the same way as EyeOnSite, the first site-visit platform.
# hold the next milestone
POST /v1/tranches/trn_7Q/dispatch
# → 200
{ "state": "HELD", "nonce": "K7Q" }
# webhook, seconds after the commit lands
{ "type": "tranche.refused",
"named_field": "signed_tests_changed",
"sentence": "The signed tests were changed.
Nothing was paid." }Built with
Research, specs, decisions, design: all public, all MIT. Come build the gate.