Where AI agents
go to shop.

An open registry that lets any agent discover verified vendors at runtime over MCP, pay them directly, and never move a cent without a human saying yes.

0% ASHRE's cut of every sale
7 Endpoints in the whole protocol
Human approval before money moves
how-it-works

One question. Eight steps. No middleman.


Watch the whole protocol get drawn — from a person asking for something, to a confirmed order, with the money going straight to the vendor.

How the ASHRE protocol works, in eight steps A chalkboard diagram: a person asks an agent for something; the agent queries the ASHRE registry for verified vendors; it calls every vendor's MCP server in parallel and is met with HTTP 402; it pays a small query fee for each catalog, reserves stock at the chosen vendor, waits for a human to approve, and then pays the vendor directly — the money arcs over ASHRE rather than through it. you your agent “a shirt, ships to IN” ASHRE registry discovery + trust. nothing else. GET /vendors/discover 3 verified vendors Helsinki Maker Store ✓ verified Chennai Threads ✓ verified Berlin Hacker Space ✓ verified GET /catalog · all three at once 402 payment required 402 payment required 402 payment required paid · catalog open paid · catalog open paid · catalog open POST /pay → bearer token POST /reserve → held 5 min human approves nothing is spent until you say yes POST /buy — 100% direct, Stripe / UPI / bank buyer vendor ASHRE 0% cut · never in the path vendor callback → order confirmed
step 0 of 8

Swipe the board sideways to follow the whole flow — or read the eight steps below.

  1. 01

    A person asks for something

    Plain language in, structured query out. The human never sees an API.

  2. 02

    The agent queries the registry

    Filter by category, destination country, and verified status.

    GET /vendors/discover?category=clothing&ships_to=IN&verified=true
  3. 03

    ASHRE returns verified vendors

    Each result is a manifest with an mcp_endpoint the agent can call directly. This is the last time ASHRE is involved.

  4. 04

    The agent calls every vendor at once

    No sponsored ranking, no bias — all of them, in parallel. Each replies with a payment challenge.

    GET /catalog → 402 Payment Required
  5. 05

    It settles the query fee

    A few cents per vendor buys a bearer token, and the catalogs open. Spam and scraping stop being free.

    POST /pay → { token, expires_in }
  6. 06

    It holds the stock

    The winning item is reserved for five minutes before anyone is asked for money, so the thing you approve is still there when you approve it. No overselling, no race between agents.

    POST /reserve → { reservation_id, held_until }
  7. 07

    A human approves

    The agent presents vendor, price, terms, and its reasoning — then stops. Nothing is spent until a person says yes.

  8. 08

    Money goes straight to the vendor

    Stripe, UPI, or bank transfer, buyer to vendor. ASHRE takes no cut and never touches the funds. The vendor then pushes order status back to the agent — no polling.

    POST /buy → order confirmed → callback
on-top-of-mcp

MCP moves the bytes. ASHRE answers “which server?”


MCP gives an agent a way to talk to a server it already knows about. Commerce needs the step before that — and the two steps after it.

Discovery

An agent that has never heard of your shop finds it at runtime, by category and shipping destination. One request, no hardcoded URLs, no directory to maintain.

GET /vendors/discover

Trust

Every listing is a manifest against a published schema, carrying a verified flag agents can filter on. Endpoints are health-probed, so dead vendors don't reach buyers.

GET /vendors/{vendor_id}/health

Payment handshake

A standard 402 challenge and token exchange, so any agent can transact with any vendor without a bespoke integration on either side.

402 → POST /pay
the-whole-api

Seven endpoints. That's the entire protocol.


ASHRE registry — the discovery and trust layer
POST /vendors/register Publish a vendor manifest. 409 if the vendor_id is taken.
GET /vendors/discover Filter on category, ships_to, verified. Returns a count and the matching manifests.
GET /vendors/{vendor_id}/health Probe a vendor's MCP endpoint. 404 if the vendor isn't registered.
Vendor MCP server — what every vendor implements
GET /catalog 402 and a payment challenge without a bearer token; the product list with one.
POST /pay Settle the query fee, receive a bearer token and its lifetime.
POST /reserve Hold stock before paying. Returns a reservation_id and held_until.
POST /buy Place the order. 410 if the reservation lapsed; pushes a callback when confirmed.

A vendor listing is one JSON file

{
"vendor_id": "chennai-threads",
"name": "Chennai Threads",
"category": ["clothing", "accessories"],
"mcp_endpoint": "https://api.chennaithreads.in/mcp",
"payment": {
"protocol": "upi",
"upi_id": "chennaithreads@upi",
"currency": "INR",
"price_per_query": "2.00"
},
"ships_to": ["IN", "LK", "SG", "MY", "AE"],
"schema_version": "0.1.0"
}

Six required fields, validated against a JSON Schema draft-07 document in the repo. Payment routes to Stripe, UPI, or bank transfer — the vendor's choice, not ASHRE's.

human-oversight

AI never spends alone.


“The agent finds the best deal.
You give the green signal.”

Autonomous purchasing is the part of agent commerce that makes people nervous, and rightly so. ASHRE builds the brake into the protocol rather than leaving it to each implementation: stock is reserved before approval is requested, the agent presents its full reasoning, and payment cannot proceed without an explicit human yes. Every step leaves an audit trail.

who-its-for

Three sides. One registry.


🤖

Agent developers

One query reaches every verified vendor. No hardcoded shop URLs, no per-merchant integration, trust signals in the response.

🏪

Vendors

Expose what you already sell as an MCP server and get found by AI buyers. Flat listing fee, zero per-sale cut, direct customer relationship.

🏢

Enterprise buyers

Let an agent do procurement legwork across a compliant vendor set, and approve every payment yourself before it happens.

reference-vendors

Three reference vendors ship with the spec.


Complete manifests and mock MCP servers, so you can run the full eight-step flow locally before writing a line of your own.

🇫🇮

Helsinki Maker Store

Maker culture merch — tees, hoodies, enamel pins, tote bags.

  • Clothing, merchandise, accessories
  • Ships to FI, SE, NO, DK, DE, NL + Baltics
  • Stripe · EUR
🇩🇪

Berlin Hacker Space

Electronics, tools, and components — Raspberry Pi kits to soldering stations.

  • Electronics, tools, components
  • Ships to DE, AT, CH, NL, BE, FR, PL, CZ
  • Stripe · EUR
🇮🇳

Chennai Threads

Handloom cotton, block prints, and Kanchipuram silk blends.

  • Clothing, accessories
  • Ships to IN, LK, SG, MY, AE
  • UPI · INR

Build on it, or
get listed on it.

An open specification, v0.1 draft. Feedback and implementations welcome.