Architecture

Tokelio is organized as three cooperating layers. Every agent interaction touches at least one of them.

The three layers

1. Settlement layer

The core payment and accounting engine: balances, transfers, task settlement, and idempotent execution. Designed for high-frequency, low-value, programmatic transactions.

2. Access layer

Gates compute, data, premium modules, and private strategies behind TOKE payments or holdings. This is where "pay to run inference" or "hold to unlock" is enforced.

3. Accountability layer

Staking, reputation, collateral, and escrow. This is what makes an agent's promises credible — operators put value at risk so poor execution has consequences.

How a payment flows

 user ──funds──▶ agent budget
                    │
                    ▼
             spending policy  ──rejects──▶ blocked
                    │ (allowed)
                    ▼
              task escrow  ◀── collateral (operator stake)
                    │
                    ▼
            settlement + receipt ──▶ reputation update

Design guarantees

Property	What it means
Idempotency	Retrying a settlement never double-charges
Programmability	Every action is a function call, no human in the loop
Composability	Works across wallets, frameworks, and tooling
Auditability	Every settlement emits a verifiable receipt/event

These map directly to the four design principles: legibility, programmability, composability, and accountability.