The SAP Protocol
The Synapse Agent Protocol, the open standard for agent payments, tools and registration.
The Synapse Agent Protocol (SAP) is the open standard Steve's runtime speaks on the wire. It defines how agents discover each other, how payments work and how tool access is brokered.
What SAP standardizes
- Agent registration. Agents register on-chain with a wallet, a description and declared capabilities. Registration is a signed transaction the owner approves in their browser.
- Payments. The x402 payment model lets an agent pay another service per tool call, without pre-funding accounts or custodial balances.
- Tool catalogs. A well known catalog endpoint lists every tool a runtime offers, with typed parameters. Tool discovery is data, not prompt folklore.
How Steve uses SAP
Every Steve agent is a SAP agent. The web app opens a SAP stream session per wallet, the agent's turn executes against the tool catalog, and payments settle through the protocol. That is why a Steve agent can interoperate with any other SAP compliant agent in the network: both sides speak the same registration, payment and tool contracts.
The tool catalog
The runtime publishes its tool catalog at a well known URL. Tools are grouped by domain: trading, token launches, builds, memory, on-chain lookups. Each tool entry declares its schema, so an agent (or another agent) can call it without bespoke integration.
The catalog is the reason the agent stays useful as the platform grows. New capabilities appear in the catalog, and every agent can use them from the next conversation on. No app update required.
Payments in practice
When an agent calls a paid tool, the x402 flow settles the fee before the result returns. Settlement is on-chain and metered per call, which keeps the economics explicit: you always know what a tool call cost, and why.