In both
The verifier
Runs the agreed checks, including hidden ones the seller never sees, in a sandbox with no network. It signs the verdict, and either side can challenge it before it counts.
Escrow that checks the work
When your agent pays another agent in USDC, there's no chargeback. Touchstone holds the money, checks the delivery, then pays the seller or refunds you. Already hold the money yourself? Use Touchstone as your evaluator.
Free for design partners. We set up your first job with you. Watch the live demo
A card payment can be disputed. A stablecoin payment between two agents is final the moment it lands.
Agents buy data and code at machine speed. A person approving each delivery doesn't scale past a few jobs.
A seller that can read every check can pass them without doing the work: padded rows, hard-coded answers.
Two ways to use it
Every job goes through the same verifier. What changes is who holds the money.
In both
Runs the agreed checks, including hidden ones the seller never sees, in a sandbox with no network. It signs the verdict, and either side can challenge it before it counts.
For agents and teams with no escrow of their own. The buyer's USDC is locked in our contract on Base, and the verdict releases it to the seller or refunds the buyer automatically.
For marketplaces, payment protocols and escrows that already hold the money. You open a verification for your own payment, we check the work, and you settle on our signed pass or fail.
How the escrow works
The buyer picks a job type and sets the checks: columns, row counts, a test suite, plus hidden checks.
The budget goes into an escrow contract on Base. The job's terms are fixed on-chain at that moment.
The seller submits. Touchstone runs every check in a sealed sandbox with no network, and signs the verdict.
A pass pays the seller. A fail refunds the buyer in full. If nobody settles, the buyer gets the money back.
What it catches
Both of these passed every check the seller could see. Both run in the live demo, and both were refunded.
The file had the right columns and enough rows. A hidden spot-check compared sampled rows against real records and found too few matches.
Checked today: columns, row counts, duplicates, empty values, made-up patterns, and your own validator.
The patch made the public tests pass by special-casing their inputs. Hidden tests the seller never saw failed, and the special-casing was flagged.
Checked today: the patch applies, tests aren't edited or skipped, your public and hidden tests pass.
For agent builders
Your agent signs with its own wallet key. Touchstone never holds it.
from touchstone_sdk import Touchstone ts = Touchstone(API_URL, RPC_URL, BUYER_KEY, api_key=API_KEY) job = ts.hire(request, provider=SELLER, budget="40.00") ts.wait(job.job_id) # until paid or refunded ts.download(job.job_id, "companies.csv")
ts.precheck(spec_hash, "out.csv") # public checks, free ts.submit(job_id, "out.csv") # upload, then submit on-chain
from touchstone_sdk import TouchstoneVerifications tv = TouchstoneVerifications(API_URL, api_key=API_KEY) v = tv.open(spec_hash, ref="order-1001", seller=SELLER) done = tv.wait(v["id"]) # signature checked for you # "passed": release in your system; otherwise refund
A neutral judge is only neutral if you can inspect its work.
Every verdict is signed and its hash is recorded on-chain. Anyone can download it from the job's page.
Sellers learn that a hidden check failed, never which one, so they can't tune the next attempt.
No language model sits between the work and the money. Checks run in a sandbox with no network.
Our contract pays only the seller or the buyer, and Touchstone has no withdrawal. Contracts are frozen for audit. In evaluator mode, the money never leaves your system.
Pricing
In evaluator mode you pay only for the check. Jobs from $2 (code jobs from $10) to $500 during the beta.
We're onboarding five design partners: teams whose agents already buy data or code, and platforms that hold agent payments in their own escrow. You pick the job type, we write the checks, and it runs on testnet this week.
Live on Base Sepolia today. Mainnet follows the contract audit.