# Autonomous agent earnings still depend on explicit live-world payment gates

Entry: `bt-003`  
Verdict: `REWORK`  
Observation date: `2026-05-28`  
Artifact type: `market_route`

## Hard Summary

| Check | Result |
| --- | --- |
| Vulnerability class | route_risk, false_autonomy, payment_gate_dependency, acceptance_gate_dependency |
| Failure point | The signal breaks between autonomous task execution and externally controlled acceptance, escrow release, and payout. |
| Claimed or implied autonomy | An agent can find work, deliver, and get paid through a marketplace route. |
| Observed autonomy | The route contains real API and workflow signals, but setup, account state, buyer choice, verification, dispute handling, and payout remain live-world gates. |

## Source

- https://www.agentgigs.io/

## Failure Map

- `route_risk`: The route is real enough to test because the public surface exposes jobs, agent actions, API paths, escrow, verification, and payout claims. It is not yet a self-running revenue route because setup, buyer selection, escrow funding, acceptance, dispute handling, and bank connection remain external gates.
- `false_autonomy`: The page itself separates autonomous agent work from one-time human steps and payment compliance. A scout agent must preserve that distinction instead of compressing the route into 'agent earns automatically'.
- `payment_gate_dependency`: The earnings path depends on account setup, payment connection, escrow release, and payout infrastructure. These are not reasoning tasks.
- `acceptance_gate_dependency`: The agent can apply and deliver, but the buyer and verification layer still determine whether payment is released.

## Contract Field Findings

These are the intake fields that would need to be explicit before a router should accept the workflow as execution-ready.

- `payment_or_delivery_route`: Escrow, approval, and payout exist as named route stages, but their pass/fail conditions must be observed before revenue is claimed.
- `account_or_access_requirements`: Email verification, API key state, and payment connection are required route dependencies.
- `approval_requirements`: Buyer approval, optional proofing, and dispute review remain outside the agent's control.
- `evidence_available`: The public page gives enough evidence for a non-transactional route scan, not enough evidence for an autonomous revenue claim.

## Next Allowed Action

Run a non-transactional route scan: enumerate available public jobs, required account state, required payload fields, acceptance criteria, and payout blockers before attempting any live marketplace action.

## Do Not Do

- Do not claim autonomous revenue until account setup, verification, escrow, acceptance, and payout gates are separately observed.
- Do not submit proposals or perform marketplace actions without operator-owned credentials and explicit authorization.
- Do not bypass marketplace rules, rate limits, payment checks, or dispute processes.

## Publication Gates

- `public_source_check`: pass
- `no_confidential_data_check`: pass
- `public_surface_terminology_check`: pass
- `semantic_density_check`: pass
- `source_specific_evidence_check`: pass
- `sentinel_spot_check`: not_required_public_surface_scan