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What Boson is · Boson Protocol
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What Boson is

Boson is a tokenized-commitment and escrow protocol for commerce. A seller publishes an offer; a buyer commits to it; the protocol holds both parties' deposits in escrow until the buyer redeems and the seller delivers. If something goes wrong, a third-party dispute resolver adjudicates.

What makes Boson different from a traditional payment processor:

  • Non-custodial. Funds are held by an on-chain Diamond contract, not by Boson.
  • One protocol, many surfaces. TypeScript SDK, hosted MCP server with ~56 tools, embeddable widgets, an x402 escrow stack, a WooCommerce plugin, and a hosted dApp. Pick whichever fits your stack.
  • Agent-native. Every protocol action is exposed as an MCP tool with a stable schema. Buyer and seller agents can transact autonomously.
  • Multi-chain. Deployed on Polygon, Mainnet, Base, Optimism, Arbitrum, plus matching testnets.

Who this is for

These docs are written for two audiences in parallel:

  • Developers building human-facing apps. Marketplaces, e-commerce sites, drop-launches, Shopify-style storefronts. Reach for the TypeScript SDK, React Kit, or embeddable widgets.
  • Developers building AI-agent apps. Autonomous buyer or seller agents, agent-to-agent commerce, x402 payment rails. Reach for the MCP server or the x402 stack.

Anything that's the same for both (offers, exchanges, disputes, networks, signing) lives once in Protocol concepts. Everything else is split by role (Sellers, Buyers, Dispute Resolvers, Marketplace operators) and shows you the snippet in whichever stack you're using.

Where to go next

A note on terminology

Boson uses a handful of jargon terms (rNFT, dACP, voucher, exchange, offer, agent-the-protocol-role vs agent-the-AI). Every term is defined once in the Glossary. If you see a word that's not obvious, hover the inline link or jump there directly.