Proposal: a machine-readable terms manifest (draft 0.1)

Status: a proposal, not a standard anyone has adopted. Platforms publish licensing signals for AI crawlers (RSL), commerce signals for shopping agents (UCP) and endpoint prices for paying agents (x402, MPP). Nothing tells a seller's agent what a platform charges the seller. This draft is a small JSON file a platform could publish at a well-known path so that a registry can verify it against the human page and an agent can read it before it lists.

Proposed location

https://<platform>/.well-known/terms.json

Proposed shape

{
  "spec": "terms-manifest/0.1",
  "platform": "Example Marketplace",
  "program": "Example App Store, paid apps",
  "url": "https://example.com/developers/pricing",
  "effective": "2026-10-01",
  "currency": "USD",
  "seller_of_record": "platform",
  "fees": [
    {"kind": "revenue_share", "rate": 0.15, "applies_to": "gross_sales", "note": "after the first $1,000,000 lifetime"},
    {"kind": "revenue_share", "rate": 0.0, "applies_to": "gross_sales", "until_lifetime_gross": 1000000},
    {"kind": "processing", "rate": 0.029, "fixed": 0.30, "applies_to": "transaction"}
  ],
  "payout": {"cadence": "monthly", "minimum": 25, "methods": ["bank_transfer", "paypal"]},
  "seller_requirements": {"entity": "individual_or_company", "jurisdictions": "list_or_url", "tax_forms": ["W-9", "W-8"], "kyc": "when selling to EMEA"},
  "entry_gate": {"type": "review", "note": "app review before listing"},
  "changes_url": "https://example.com/developers/changelog",
  "previous": [{"effective": "2026-04-01", "fees": [{"kind": "revenue_share", "rate": 0.16}]}]
}

Rules a registry would apply

• A manifest is a claim. The registry verifies it against the human page on the fetch date and labels the record official only when the two agree.
• effective dates make the history explicit; a platform that changes a fee publishes a new entry and moves the old one into previous.
• seller_of_record is either platform, seller or processor, because that single field decides who owes the tax on the sale.
• Anything the platform does not publish is omitted, never estimated. The registry's own record carries the secondary figure with its label.

Why a platform would publish one

Because agents are beginning to choose channels on behalf of sellers, and an unreadable fee is a fee that loses the comparison. The same reason product feeds exist for shopping agents applies to seller terms.

What this is not

Not a licence, not a pricing API, not a payment protocol. It describes terms; it does not transact them.