The Zion Facilitator

Zion operates as a Managed Facilitator Cloud, acting as the trusted intermediary that verifies payments between AI Agents and your API.

Architecture

1. Request: The AI Agent makes a request to your API.
2. Challenge (402): Your API (via Zion SDK) sees no payment proof and responds with 402 Payment Required. This response contains payment details (recipient, amount, and the Facilitator's treasury address).
3. Payment: The Agent signs a Solana transaction that splits the payment:
   • 99% to You (The Developer)
   • 1% to Zion Treasury (Fee)
4. Verification: The Agent sends the transaction signature to the Zion Facilitator.
5. Settlement: The Facilitator verifies the transaction on-chain validation (Atomic Split Check) and issues a Payment Header (proof).
6. Access: The Agent retries the request to your API with the Payment Header. The Zion SDK verifies this header instantly and grants access.

Why a Facilitator?

• Speed: We handle the heavy lifting of RPC calls and transaction verification, so your API doesn't have to wait for block confirmations.
• Security: We ensure that payments are correctly split and haven't been double-spent.
• Simplicity: You don't need to run a Solana node or manage complex wallet infrastructure.