MPP Conformance & Production Readiness

Before writing code

Fetch live docs:

1. Fetch https://paymentauth.org/ for the canonical specification requirements
2. Fetch https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ryan-httpauth-payment/ for the IETF draft compliance requirements
3. Web-search site:docs.stripe.com payments machine mpp production for Stripe production readiness
4. Web-search site:paymentauth.org draft-payment-discovery for service discovery compliance

Protocol Compliance Checklist

HTTP 402 Response

• Returns 402 Payment Required status code for unpaid requests
• Includes WWW-Authenticate: Payment <base64url-challenge> header
• Challenge contains required fields: id, realm, method, intent, request
• Challenge JSON is RFC 8785 canonicalized before base64url encoding
• Challenge size under 8KB
• Error body follows RFC 9457 Problem Details format

Authorization Header

• Accepts Authorization: Payment <base64url-credential> header
• Parses credential correctly (base64url decode → JSON)
• Validates payment proof against the payment method
• Returns appropriate error for invalid credentials

Payment-Receipt Header

• Returns Payment-Receipt: <base64url-receipt> on successful payment
• Receipt contains: status, method, timestamp, reference
• Receipt is delivered atomically with the resource

Challenge Binding

• Uses 32-byte secret key for HMAC challenge binding
• Challenge IDs are unique and non-guessable
• Challenges have expiration timestamps
• Expired challenges are rejected
• Each challenge can only be consumed once (replay protection)

Transport Security

• TLS 1.2+ on all endpoints (TLS 1.3 recommended)
• HTTPS only (port 443)
• Cache-Control: no-store on responses with credentials
• No plaintext credential logging

Payment Methods

• At least one payment method configured
• Tempo: correct chain ID (4217), valid USDC contract address, valid recipient
• Stripe: valid API key, correct SPT handling
• Payment verification is atomic (no partial states)

Service Discovery

• GET /openapi.json returns valid OpenAPI 3.x document
• x-service-info extension present with categories and docs
• x-payment-info extension on each payable operation
• All payable operations declare 402 response
• OpenAPI document under 64 KB
• Cache-Control: max-age=300 on discovery endpoints
• llms.txt available with service description

Error Handling

• payment-required for initial challenges
• verification-failed for invalid proofs
• payment-expired for expired challenges/credentials
• malformed-credential for unparseable credentials
• All errors include RFC 9457 type URLs

Production Readiness Checklist

Security

• Secret key stored in environment variable or secrets manager
• No hardcoded Stripe keys, wallet keys, or SPT tokens
• Key rotation strategy documented
• Rate limiting implemented
• DDoS protection (Cloudflare, AWS Shield, etc.)

Monitoring

• Payment success/failure metrics collected
• Challenge issuance rate tracked
• Revenue per endpoint dashboarded
• Alert on verification failure spikes
• Tempo chain health monitored (if using Tempo)
• Stripe API availability monitored (if using Stripe)

Reliability

• Health check endpoint (outside payment gate)
• Graceful degradation if payment provider is down
• Credential store (Redis/DB) for replay protection has failover
• Load tested with expected traffic volume

Operations

• Deployment does not interrupt active payment sessions
• Secret key rotation does not invalidate in-flight challenges
• Refund process documented and tested
• Billing reconciliation process defined

Fetch the latest specification and IETF draft for any newly added compliance requirements before running conformance checks.