> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.praesia.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

> ## Agent Instructions
> Praesia is in closed beta. Cards work in the sandbox with test funds, and no real money moves. To use Praesia, you need an invite. To request an invite, open https://praesia.ai/contact.

# Payments for AI agents

> Give your AI agent its own financial account and a single-use virtual card for each purchase, within rules you approve.

Praesia is the financial account for AI agents. Each agent holds its own identity, which you approve with your passkey. You write the rules in plain words, and your agent pays with a single-use virtual card from inside its harness without asking you each time. Every purchase leaves an audit trail back to a rule you approved.

## What Praesia enables

**Cards work today in the sandbox with test funds.** Real money arrives with live mode, and bank transfers by ACH and wire are coming soon.

* **Enroll in one message.** Your agent joins Praesia with its own identity, and you approve it with your passkey.
* **Shape your rules together.** Your agent turns what you want into a mandate, and you approve the final text.
* **Pay at a checkout.** Each approved purchase gets its own virtual card, which works once.
* **Stay within your rules.** Praesia approves or refuses each purchase before any money moves.
* **Keep an audit trail.** Each decision goes in a tamper-evident journal, and the console shows what each agent bought and under which mandate.

## How a purchase works

<ol>
  <li>
    YouApprove a mandateYour rules, confirmed with your passkey.
  </li>

  <li>
    Your agentAsks to payIt asks Praesia to approve the purchase.
  </li>

  <li>
    PraesiaApproves or refusesA refusal moves no money.
  </li>

  <li>
    Your agentPays with a single-use cardIt works once, up to the approved amount.
  </li>
</ol>

## What the rules look like

A mandate holds whatever rules you want, in your own words: which merchants, which products, which conditions, which limits. Praesia holds every purchase to that text, whatever your agent buys:

| Your agent buys | Its mandate |
| - | - |
| Hotel stays | You pay hotels at booking.com: 4-star only, with a swimming pool, no balcony, max \$200 a night, up to \$500 a month. |
| Laptops | You pay computer shops: at least 16 GB of memory, with a backlit keyboard, up to \$1,400 in total. |
| Train tickets | You pay train operators: second class only, max \$150 per ticket, up to \$400 a month. |
| Software | You pay software and cloud services: only compute, AI APIs and developer tools, no hardware, up to \$500 a month. |

## Get started

You need an invite from Praesia. It holds everything the setup asks for. [Request an invite](https://praesia.ai/contact).

> [card] [Quickstart](https://docs.praesia.ai/quickstart.md)
>
> Paste one line into your agent, and it does the setup.

> [card] [Test in the sandbox](https://docs.praesia.ai/sandbox.md)
>
> Go from an approved mandate to a paid purchase with test funds.

> [card] [Manual install](https://docs.praesia.ai/manual-install.md)
>
> Finish the install when your harness can't do it alone.

> [card] [Mandates](https://docs.praesia.ai/mandates.md)
>
> Turn what you want into rules your agent can follow.

**An SDK is coming soon.** It will make it easier to build Praesia into your own agents.

## Key terms

| Term | Meaning |
| - | - |
| Harness | The app that runs your agent, such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Dot or Grok Bot. |
| MCP | Model Context Protocol, the standard your harness uses to call tools. The Praesia CLI runs a local MCP server on your machine. |
| Mandate | The rules you write for an agent. |
| Agent budget | The most an agent can spend across all its mandates over a period. |
| Approval | Your passkey confirmation of a mandate or an agent budget. |
| Profile | The name of an agent on your machine. |


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