ACK-Lab Developer Preview: Building Trust Infrastructure for Agentic Commerce

How do you give an AI agent money and not lose sleep over it?

We’re answering this question, beginning with a foundational layer of protocols and patterns we identified in the open source Agent Commerce Kit (ACK). Now, we’re sharing a developer preview and demos of those patterns, ACK-Lab, that you can use today for testing and experimentation.

From Protocols to Practice

ACK defines open protocols and patterns built on internet standards for identity (ACK-ID) and payments (ACK-Pay), which are foundational to agentic commerce. These patterns illustrate how agents can reliably identify themselves and transact with each other.

Now, we're sharing a developer preview of ACK-Lab, which shows examples of how ACK works in practice. While anyone can implement ACK protocols from scratch, ACK-Lab provides a fast path to experimentation.

ACK-Lab gives your agents three capabilities:

  1. Identity: Cryptographic credentials so agents can prove who they are and who controls them (based on ACK-ID)
  2. Wallet: Secure testnet wallets so agents can transact safely with a proxy for stablecoins, testUSD, (based on ACK-Pay)
  3. Rules: Policies that govern what agents are allowed to do

With the hosted ACK-Lab service and related demo apps, you can start testing and experimenting with how agents can use money in only a few minutes. ACK-Lab is based on the same infrastructure technology we’re developing for our AI-native bank.

ACK-Lab Overview

See It In Action

We are sharing two demos that showcase agent-to-agent commerce:

Demo 1: Autonomous Token Swap

Watch two agents negotiate and execute a USDC-to-SOL swap. One agent needs SOL, the other provides swap services. They:

  • Exchange cryptographic credentials before any communication
  • Fetch real-time prices from an oracle
  • Generate payment tokens and process transactions
  • Execute the swap with full audit trails

The entire flow happens autonomously, with ACK-Lab rules controlling maximum transaction sizes, minimum balances, and spending limits.

Explore the Swap Demo code on Github or try it on Replit.

Demo 2: Data Marketplace Negotiation

See agents negotiate access to premium datasets. A researcher agent discovers data from a provider agent, then they:

  • Verify each other's identities before negotiating
  • Dynamically negotiate prices within policy bounds
  • Process payment through ACK-Pay
  • Grant time-limited access tokens

The negotiation isn't hardcoded. Agents find mutually acceptable prices based on the rules you set.

Explore the Marketplace Demo code on Github or try it on Replit.

Getting Started in Minutes

The setup flow is designed to get you experimenting quickly:

Step 1: Register Your Agents → Head to the developer preview at ack-lab.catenalabs.com, log in, and select the option to clone one of the demos.

Step 2: Run a Demo → Follow the instructions to clone and configure the demo.

Step 3: Experiment and Iterate → This is where it gets interesting. Run a demo and watch a transaction get blocked by a spending limit. Switch back to ACK-Lab, adjust the policy, and run it again. See how different rules change agent behavior. Lower the daily limit and watch negotiations fail. Require stricter verification and see trusted transactions succeed.

Step 4: Build Your Own → Once you’ve gotten a handle on how the system works, build your own agents and experiment with how they can use identity and stablecoins to send and receive payments.

The entire loop, from agent creation to policy adjustment, takes about 10 minutes.

Built for Builders

ACK-Lab runs on testnet, so you're using test dollars — all the complexity of real transactions without the risk. The ACK-Lab SDK handles credential exchange, payment processing, and policy enforcement. With these capabilities, you can focus on what your agents should do, not how to make them trustworthy.

ACK-Lab is currently a hosted service, but the underlying ACK protocols remain open source. You can implement them directly in your own infrastructure, or use the experimental ACK-Lab Developer Preview to prototype and learn.

Join the Experiment

We need your feedback. What policies do your agents need? What's too complicated? What's missing?

  • Get started at ack-lab.catenalabs.com
  • Run the demos and build your own agents
  • Join our Discord to share what you're building
  • Explore the ACK protocol documentation at agentcommercekit.com
  • Tell us what agent commerce infrastructure should look like