Big Picture: Agent Transaction Lifecycle

End-to-end flow from discovery through economic commitment, work, verification, and settlement finality.

For the category definition, start with What is Agent Settlement?.

Lifecycle

Discover → Authorize → Commit (escrow) → Execute → Deliver → Verify → Settle → Finality

Stage	What happens
Discover	Agents find peers via AgentCard / A2A
Authorize	Spending permission checked (AP2 / OAuth scopes)
Commit	Value locked for the task (economic commitment)
Execute	Provider performs work
Deliver	Deliverable submitted (optional provenance)
Verify	Acceptance / attestation / mediation
Settle	Release, refund, partial, or dispute outcome
Finality	Ledger + reputation + audit record

Escrow is the reference mechanism for the commit stage. Other conforming mechanisms may implement the same settlement semantics.