OpenClaw Payments: Intent → Card → Verify (A Safe Checkout Flow)

OpenClaw agents move fast. That’s the point.

But the moment your agent can spend, a new requirement appears: a checkout flow that stays safe when the agent is wrong.

This post is the simplest production-friendly pattern we’ve found:

Intent → Card → Verify

It works for ecommerce, SaaS, and “buy API credits” style purchases, and it’s designed around one principle:

Don’t let an agent spend money unless you can explain the charge later.

If you’re starting from zero, also see: OpenClaw Payments and Signets MCP.

The 3-step flow

1) Intent (declare what will be bought)

The agent must declare the purchase before any credentials are released.

What you want in an intent:

• ▸Purpose (human readable)
• ▸Expected amount (or range)
• ▸Expected merchant (when possible)
• ▸Optional recurrence window for subscriptions

Example MCP call:

signets.intents.create(
  purpose="Buy $50 of API credits for Example API",
  expectedAmount=5000,
  expectedMerchant="exampleapi.com"
)

Why this matters: intent is an audit primitive. It’s also your main policy hook (“approve/deny/escalate”).

2) Card (issue/unlock isolated credentials)

Once the intent is approved, the system issues a dedicated card or unlocks an existing locked card for a narrow window.

For sensitive card data, require:

• ▸intentId (links the purchase)
• ▸reason (forces a natural-language justification)

signets.cards.get_sensitive(
  cardId="card_xyz",
  intentId="int_abc123",
  reason="Checkout for API credits (approved intent)"
)

Rule of thumb: if an agent can call “get me raw credentials” without an intent, you don’t have a safe system. You have a password manager with a chatbot glued on.

3) Verify (confirm spend matched intent)

After checkout, verify the resulting transaction matches the intent.

signets.transactions.list_for_card(cardId="card_xyz")

At minimum, compare:

• ▸amount (exact or within tolerance)
• ▸merchant name / descriptor
• ▸time window
• ▸intent purpose tag

Then store an evidence record:

{
  "intentId": "int_abc123",
  "cardId": "card_xyz",
  "merchant": "EXAMPLEAPI.COM",
  "amount": 5000,
  "currency": "USD",
  "transactionId": "txn_123",
  "decision": "approved",
  "reason": "API credits",
  "verifiedAt": "2026-02-05T18:22:10Z"
}

This is the single best “future-you” feature you can add.

A 5-minute ecommerce example

This is the flow you can copy into your OpenClaw “payments skill pack” README.

Step 0: Preconditions

• ▸Your Signets account is funded.
• ▸You can authenticate to MCP (OAuth or agent token).

Check status:

signets.kyc.status
signets.balance.get

Step 1: Create intent

signets.intents.create(
  purpose="Buy a replacement USB-C hub",
  expectedAmount=3500,
  expectedMerchant="amazon.com"
)

If the purchase is above a threshold, your policy should require approval instead of auto-issuing a card.

Step 2: Checkout with isolated credentials

signets.cards.get_sensitive(
  cardId="card_xyz",
  intentId="int_abc123",
  reason="E-commerce checkout for USB-C hub"
)

Step 3: Verify transaction

signets.transactions.list_for_card(cardId="card_xyz")

If it doesn’t match the intent, treat it like an incident:

• ▸re-lock card
• ▸alert a human
• ▸attach logs and page artifacts

Where safety breaks (and how to prevent it)

Failure mode: “The agent retried and double-charged”

Agents retry. Merchants can return ambiguous responses. Result: duplicate charges.

Control: add a “velocity check” in policy (“no more than 1 transaction per merchant per 60 seconds”) and/or enforce a “one intent → one successful transaction” constraint.

Failure mode: “Merchant drift”

The agent is allowed to buy in one domain but ends up spending elsewhere.

Control: merchant allowlists and category/MCC locks where possible.

See: Merchant Drift.

Failure mode: “The agent asked for bigger limits”

If the agent can request its own scope, it will eventually request too much—by bug, compromise, or misinterpretation.

Control: policies must be enforced by the system, not the agent.

See: Shared credentials are dangerous.

Recommended internal links for this post

If you’re building this as an acquisition wedge, every OpenClaw payment post should link to:

• ▸OpenClaw Payments (canonical)
• ▸MCP (setup)
• ▸Pricing (conversion)
• ▸AI Agent Overspend Postmortem (risk)
• ▸AI Agent Chargebacks (liability)

Bottom line

If you want OpenClaw momentum without lighting money on fire:

1. ▸Make intent mandatory.
2. ▸Keep credentials isolated and time-bounded.
3. ▸Verify every transaction and store evidence.

That’s the checkout flow that scales.