Payvy. AGENTS & HUMAN AUTHORITY
Payvy is being built so agents can prepare accounts payable work, people authorize consequential decisions, and the record shows how a bill moved forward.
The current command layer distinguishes people from agents. Restrictions are enforced on the server, across both REST and MCP; hiding an action in the interface is only part of the experience.
| Work | Agent’s role | Person / system control |
|---|---|---|
| Read and prepare bills | Read records, file documents, extract invoice data and create draft work. | Review the bill and its evidence. |
| Change a workflow | Propose a new vendor workflow. | Accept the workflow; existing bills keep their original version. |
| Change a payment destination | Propose a vendor’s bank recipient. | Accept the recipient change before it can be used. |
| Approve or release a bill | Prepare the information needed for a decision. | Approve the bill and preview and confirm release. Agent credentials cannot run these commands. |
| Handle an uncertain payment | Read status and surface the exception. | Review the bank result and decide on the next action. The Mercury worker reuses the attempt’s key when retrying an uncertain submission. |
Inspect the command definitions, server enforcement and Mercury payment flow.
Confirmed commands require a preview and a single-use confirmation token tied to the command and its input. Changing the input requires a new preview.
Payment release also requires a person credential. The intended web experience puts the amount, destination and supporting evidence together for review.
State changes write audit events in the same database transaction. Bills keep their workflow version, so a later workflow edit does not silently rewrite work already in progress.
The broader task history, evidence packets and an interface for investigating decisions are part of the product direction.
Invoice files live in the configured S3-compatible object store. Self-hosters choose that store and manage its access, backups and retention.
Extraction sends document content to the configured model provider. A compatible model you operate can keep that processing on your infrastructure; using an external provider sends the content there.
The current extraction provider key is configured by the server operator. The hosted $39 plan’s per-company key setup, storage and rotation experience is planned.
Before hosted launch, we’ll document who can access keys, how they’re protected and how to revoke or replace them.
The Mercury token is encrypted in the database with a server-held key. Vendor payment records use the bank’s recipient identifier, rather than storing the full bank account number.
Request mode requires an additional approval in Mercury. Direct mode relies on the person-authorized release in Payvy and the bank’s token permissions.
Commands run within an organization-scoped database transaction, with Postgres row-level security. The current agent boundary is based on actor type.
More granular permissions for individual agents, task-specific access and spending policies are planned.
Read the source for model processing, bank-token storage and document storage and organization isolation.
Give each task an owner, a visible state and the evidence needed for the next decision. Pause for an exception and resume from recorded progress after a disconnect.
Limit each agent to the work it needs, make access easy to revoke, and evaluate proposed actions against explicit policies. Preserve human authorization for payment release.
No. This page describes source behavior and intended controls. We are not claiming SOC 2 certification, HIPAA compliance or an independent security audit. Hosted operating controls, retention terms and deployment details will be documented before launch.
Yes. Payvy’s Rust source is available under AGPL-3.0-only. The links above point to the reviewed revision, so implemented behavior can be distinguished from the roadmap.
Email support@payvy.com to arrange a private report. Avoid including credentials, invoices or exploit details in a public issue.