ALPNAI / FIELD NOTES / 14.09.2026
Connect an MCP agent with budgets and replayable purchases
Understand ALPNAI’s pilot contract: authorized access, a simulated budget, idempotency keys and persistent receipts before enabling a commercial integration.
Begin with test access
Pilot enrollment uses ChatGPT sign-in and explicit consent. An enrolled account receives a test key and a total budget of 1 simulated USDC. The key is shown when issued and stored as a hash. Rotating a key does not create a fresh budget. This keeps credential replacement separate from spending authorization and prevents a rotation from being mistaken for new credit.
Discover before purchasing
The MCP endpoint is /api/mcp. The get_catalog and get_free_sample tools expose the catalog and dated collection without a budget debit. The purchase_snapshot, purchase_changes and purchase_evidence tools share REST authorization and budget checks. Supply the key in Authorization: Bearer. Sandbox is the default. An explicit live request enters the commercial flow and its checks; collection remains closed until commercial activation.
Preserve the purchase identity
Each MCP purchase requires idempotency_key: 8 to 100 letters, digits, hyphens or underscores. Reuse the same value and parameters after an interrupted request. The server returns the existing receipt without another simulated debit. Reusing that value with different parameters produces a conflict. For Change Set, since accepts a valid date in YYYY-MM-DD format; it filters the maintained collection.
Handle receipts and refusals
A receipt reports sandbox mode, settled: false and zero real revenue. Your client must handle an unknown or revoked key, insufficient budget and invalid dates. Commercial REST requests remain unavailable until payments are enabled. Local MCP and enrollment checks have passed, but those results do not establish public availability or production settlement. Keep test receipts separate from any future accounting records.
Sources
ALPNAI — Contrat OpenAPI du pilote
Model Context Protocol — Publishing Remote Servers