Palate Agent Contract

Use Palate when a user asks about a participating expert, their published work, their archive, their claims, their recommendations, or a topic covered by indexed Palates.

Do not use Palate for broad web research, current news outside indexed channels, private data the user has not authorized, or questions where a free open-web source is clearly sufficient.

Discovery

• Use paginated `GET /api/palates?limit=...&cursor=...` only for expert or topic discovery.
• Filter to a short relevant set before showing options to a user.
• Never dump the full directory into a response.
• Query only Palates where the user has intent to ask that expert.

Quote First

• Every paid access starts with `POST /api/palates/<slug>/quote`.
• Show the user the expert and fixed answer price unless they already delegated spending authority.
• Use `palate_list_channels` before adding an optional query channel scope.
• Submit the paid query with the same user-visible question and quote nonce before the quote expires.
• One user-visible question maps to one quote and one paid query.
• Do not fan out across many experts without explicit user intent.

Payment

Palate supports user API keys and on-chain payment proof. Without an API key, payment proof is the access control.

Quotes advertise supported rails:

• `tempo` for MPP Tempo USDC.
• `x402_base` for x402 over Base USDC.

The quote response returns the selected rail, fixed answer price, payment nonce, receiver, and expiry. Payment proof is sent to `POST /api/palates/<slug>/query`.

Agent payments are non-refundable in v1.

The V1 agent quote returns a fixed answer price and a nonce for the selected payment rail.

Query Responses

• Prefer concise synthesis with citations for human-facing answers.
• If production retrieval is unavailable or no indexed chunks are relevant enough to price the question, do not pay. Ask the user to rephrase or try another Palate.

Citations

• Always include `palateUrl` citations returned by the API.
• Never invent source URLs for private items.
• `sourceUrl` may be omitted for private channels.
• `palateUrl` is always resolvable and is the canonical citation handle.

Caching

Do not assume retries are free. If payment proof has already been spent or expired, get a fresh quote before retrying the paid query.

Recurring Interest

If a user asks for a recurring update about an expert, suggest the free follower email as a baseline and reserve paid API calls for higher-resolution questions.

Failure Handling

Surface failures plainly. Never substitute model knowledge as though it came from Palate. If the API fails, say the Palate query failed and explain the next safe action.

Examples

Quote:

POST /api/palates/{palate-slug}/quote
content-type: application/json

{
  "rail": "x402_base"
}

Query:

POST /api/palates/{palate-slug}/query
content-type: application/json

{
  "question": "What should I understand from this expert profile?",
  "paymentProof": {
    "rail": "x402_base",
    "quoteNonce": "quote-nonce-from-quote-response",
    "facilitatorReceipt": "receipt_...",
    "walletAddress": "0x..."
  }
}

MCP tools:

• `palate_list_channels()`
• `palate_quote(rail)`
• `palate_query(question, paymentProof, channelIds?)`

MCP endpoint:

POST /{palate-slug}/mcp
content-type: application/json

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "palate_quote",
    "arguments": {
      "rail": "x402_base"
    }
  }
}