Manca

The missing trust layer for agent‑to‑agent commerce.

Manca is a neutral clearinghouse where any agent can both buy and sell — one connection, both sides. It doesn't try to own the connection standard (AP2/UCP/x402 already did that, for free). It owns the layer those protocols deliberately refuse to touch: who do you trust, who holds the money in flight, and who eats the loss when an autonomous deal fails with no human present.

That layer is escrow + machine‑verifiable fulfillment + a reputation graph + risk underwriting — and it's profitable from the first cleared trade, without a single transaction toll.

Manca — Italian/Spanish for "it's missing." This is the missing piece.

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Why this exists

Three rounds of multi‑model research (7 frontier models — Opus 4.8, Gemini 3.1 Pro, GPT‑5.5, GLM‑5.2, Kimi K2, Grok 4.3, DeepSeek V4) converged on one conclusion:

• The connection standards for agent commerce already shipped and are free public infrastructure (Google AP2 → FIDO, Shopify/Google UCP, OpenAI/Stripe ACP, Coinbase x402).
• The transaction‑fee model is dead (OpenAI's 4% ACP fee was rolled back within weeks; Perplexity went zero‑fee and won).
• What is still unowned is trust + clearing + risk — the "absence of a human to blame" in autonomous, human‑not‑present commerce.

Manca is a reference implementation of that layer. It consumes AP2/UCP/x402; it does not rebuild them.

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The core idea in one picture

   ANY buyer agent                                   ANY seller agent
        │  signed buy mandate                             │  signed sell offer
        ▼                                                 ▼
   ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │                     MANCA CLEARINGHOUSE                  │
   │  match  →  escrow (float)  →  machine‑verify  →  settle  │
   │                      reputation graph  ◄── the moat      │
   └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
   revenue: clearing fee · float yield · savings share · insurance · verified‑supply

Symmetric by construction: every account has both payables and receivables, and is both rated and rating. The same object buys and sells. That's how one connection gives an agent both sides.

Machine‑verifiable settlement: a buy mandate carries a verification rule (json_schema, hash_match, value_threshold, http_ok, or manual). Funds only release when the delivered payload provably satisfies it — so digital A2A trades settle autonomously, and physical/subjective ones (manual) are flagged for human attestation instead of silently auto‑settling.

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Try it in 10 seconds (no clone, no install)

npx -y github:SIML-Inc/Manca demo     # watch agents trade A2A + money accrue

Add it to any MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, …):

{ "mcpServers": { "manca": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "github:SIML-Inc/Manca", "mcp"] } } }

Quickstart from source (zero dependencies, Node ≥ 22.6)

git clone https://github.com/SIML-Inc/Manca && cd Manca
npm test               # 12 passing tests — the clearing + x402 mechanism, proven
npm run demo           # A2A trade demo with live P&L and x402 settlement
MANCA_SEED=1 npm run serve   # live dashboard at http://localhost:8787

npm run demo output ends with a live P&L:

verified_supply_subscription   $297.0000
clearing_fee                   $0.8000
savings_share                  $6.0000
insurance_premium              $2.9830
TOTAL NETWORK REVENUE          $306.7830

Nothing to install — Manca runs TypeScript natively on Node 23 and has no runtime dependencies.

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Connect any agent (MCP — one config)

npm run mcp     # starts the Manca MCP server on stdio

Add it to any MCP client (Claude Desktop, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "manca": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["--experimental-strip-types", "/absolute/path/to/Manca/src/cli.ts", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Now any agent has 10 tools — manca_open_account, manca_deposit, manca_sell, manca_buy, manca_match, manca_fulfill, manca_revenue, … — and can buy and sell. Signing is custodial (Manca manages the account key), so the agent needs zero crypto plumbing. That's the one‑liner distribution.

Prefer HTTP? npm run serve exposes the same operations as a REST API on :8787.

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Use it from code (the SDK)

import { Store } from "./src/core/store.ts";
import { Clearinghouse } from "./src/core/clearinghouse.ts";
import { loadConfig } from "./src/core/config.ts";
import { Agent } from "./src/agent.ts";

const hub = new Clearinghouse(new Store(), loadConfig());

const buyer  = new Agent(hub, "buyer").deposit(100);
const seller = new Agent(hub, "seller").becomeVerifiedSupplier();

seller.sell({ category: "web-scrape", attributes: { rows: 5000 }, price: 40, slaSeconds: 60, available: 1 });

const mandate = buyer.buy({
  category: "web-scrape", spec: { rows: 5000 }, maxPrice: 50, minReputation: 0,
  referencePrice: 60, insured: true,
  verification: { type: "value_threshold", field: "rows", min: 5000 },
  deadline: Date.now() + 60_000,
});

const trade = hub.match(mandate.id);          // escrow locked, authority checked
await seller.fulfill(trade.id, { rows: 5200 }); // machine‑verified → auto‑settled

console.log(hub.revenueReport());              // the network already made money

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Monetization (profitable on day one, no toll)

Stream	Mechanism	Config key
Clearing + guarantee fee	bps on cleared value — priced for risk removal, not access	clearing.clearingFeeBps
Float yield	interest on funds held in escrow while in flight (the Circle/Adyen mechanic)	float.floatApyBps
Savings share	a cut of realized savings vs the buyer's reference price — you only earn when the buyer wins	savingsShare.savingsShareBps
Fulfillment insurance	risk‑priced premium; pays the buyer from a pool on failure; premium earned on success	insurance.premiumBps
Verified supply	recurring subscription for eligible, discoverable sellers	verifiedSupply.subscriptionMonthlyUsd

Every stream is turned on and priced in manca.config.json. See docs/MONETIZATION.md.

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Unique network identity (not a template)

Every Manca deployment has its own cryptographic identity. This repo ships one already generated (network.id = manca_b0909cbe45c53332). To mint your own:

npm run init     # writes .manca/network.json (private key, gitignored)

The private key never leaves .manca/ (gitignored); only the public network id + config are shared.

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Layout

src/core/        clearinghouse, escrow, fulfillment, reputation, revenue, crypto, store
src/server/      http.ts (REST) · mcp.ts (MCP over stdio)
src/agent.ts     the buyer+seller SDK
src/demo.ts      end‑to‑end A2A settlement demo
test/            node:test suite (8 tests)
docs/            ARCHITECTURE.md · MONETIZATION.md
manca.config.json  this network's unique config + fee schedule

Status

Reference MVP: full clearing mechanism, escrow, machine‑verified settlement, reputation, revenue engine, MCP + HTTP surfaces, tests. In‑memory/JSON persistence is swappable for Postgres/Supabase without touching the clearing logic. Settlement is modeled; wiring to live rails (x402/USDC, AP2 mandates) is the next step.

MIT licensed.