Answered from live records · 2026-09-15
How can an AI agent swap tokens?
By asking for an unsigned transaction rather than delegating a key: the agent posts an intent, four targets are read, the owner's policy decides, the route is simulated, and the agent signs, as of 2026-09-15.
The seven steps of one Sato Swap call. Step 1 is the load-bearing one: custody is never transferred, so the question stops being “what will this service do with my funds” and becomes “is this object one my policy allows me to sign”. Sato Hub holds no key, signs nothing and broadcasts nothing.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1 · nothing is delegated | Sato Swap is asked for an object, not for permission. No module in the path holds a key or can sign, so an agent with no signer still has none after the call. |
| 2 · the agent posts an intent | Chain, token in, token out, amount in base units, the taker address, slippage and an optional deadline — over POST /api/swap/quote or the MCP tool onchain_agent_swap. The same code answers both. |
| 3 · four targets are read | Both tokens, the venue endpoint and the recipient, each with its own verdict and the rule that produced it. Unknown refuses by default. |
| 4 · the owner's policy decides | Caps, allowlists, slippage and deadline ceilings, and what a caution or an unknown does. The policy is the agent's owner speaking, in code the agent cannot reach. |
| 5 · the route is simulated | Against a node, before anything is handed back. A route that reverts is withheld with the decoded reason. |
| 6 · an unsigned object comes back | EVM calldata, or the venue's unsigned base64 transaction on Solana — or, in recommend mode, no transaction at all. The agent's own wallet signs it, or does not. |
| 7 · a receipt records the decision | Ed25519-signed over what was returned and what was checked. A record of the decision, never proof that a trade settled. |
How this was answered
The full Sato Swap path, from lib/swap/quoteRequest.ts through gateSwap(), evaluatePolicy(), simulateSwap() and buildSwap() to writeSwapReceipt() — the seven steps one request passes through, in the order the code runs them.
Every answer on this page is produced by one named function over Sato Hub's live records on the date shown. Nothing is typed by hand, no figure is carried over from a previous day, and an answer with nothing behind it says unknown rather than zero. The Sato Score measures how open, active and verifiable a project is — it is not a safety, quality or returns grade.
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Sato Hub. "How can an AI agent swap tokens?." Sato Hub, updated 2026-09-15, accessed 2026-09-16. https://satohub.ai/answers/how-can-an-ai-agent-swap-tokensData last refreshed 2026-09-15; this page is rebuilt daily. Citations carry the date so a reader can tell which snapshot a claim came from. Catalog data is licensed CC-BY-4.0 and the machine-readable copy is linked in the page's Dataset metadata.