Source trust tiers
Every seller your agent can pay falls into one of three groups. The catalog holds all three. You can browse it on the portal's Catalog page and at powaagent.ai/data.
| Tier | What it is | Who vouches for it |
|---|---|---|
| Premium | Verified sellers that PowaHub has reviewed and monitors | PowaHub |
| Standard | Sellers listed on a self-serve basis | Nobody. PowaHub doesn't check the data, uptime or license. |
| Open Ecosystem | Any other API that accepts x402 payments | Nobody. Open Ecosystem endpoints have no verification. |
The tier describes the seller's relationship with PowaHub, not a guarantee of data quality.
How tiers map to your settings
The Ecosystem switches on your Source policy page control which tiers your agent can pay:
| Tier | Switch on Source policy | Can you turn it off? |
|---|---|---|
| Premium | PowaHub Verified | No. It's always on. |
| Standard | Buyer Approved endpoints | Yes. It's on for new accounts. |
| Open Ecosystem | Open Ecosystem | Yes. It's on for new accounts. |
The catalog
Your deny list and allow list apply to every tier. A Premium seller on your deny list is still refused.
How to tell which tier a result came from
- Tool descriptions: the connector has one tool per Premium or Standard listing. Each tool's description ends with its tier, for example "Tier: PowaHub Premium.", followed by the listing's price per call.
- The catalog API:
GET https://api.powahub.ai/cataloglists the Premium and Standard listings only. Each entry has atierofPREMIUMorSTANDARD. See Catalog. - The result:
provenance.service_idis set for Premium and Standard listings and isnullfor Open Ecosystem calls.
The source block on Premium responses
Premium responses can carry a source block that describes the data. Here's an illustrative example:
"source": {
"freshnessBand": "Static",
"uptime": "Monitored",
"license": "<license>",
"underlyingSource": "<underlying dataset>"
}
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
freshnessBand | How current the data is, for example Live or Static |
uptime | Monitored for Premium sellers |
license | The license of the underlying data, when known |
underlyingSource | Where the data comes from, when known |
lastUpdated | When the data was last refreshed. Omitted for static data. |
The block sits next to the seller's own response. Standard and Open Ecosystem responses don't have one.