Registry Overview
How the Commerce Gateway Registry works, what verification means, and where to start.
2 min read · Registry
Registry Overview
The Commerce Gateway Registry is an open directory of verified AI commerce gateways. It implements the Commerce Registry Protocol — an open, versioned specification for gateway registration, domain verification, and agent-facing discovery.
What the registry does
When an AI agent needs to call commerce operations for a brand, it needs to know two things: where the gateway is, and whether it can be trusted. The registry answers both.
A gateway listed as active in the registry has completed domain verification — the registrant proved they control the brand's apex domain via DNS or a hosted token file. Agents and resolvers treat this as verified, higher-trust discovery.
Two levels of discovery
1. Verified registration (higher trust)
Full registration + domain verification via a protocol-compliant registry. This is the recommended path for any production gateway.
2. .well-known only (lower trust)
Publish /.well-known/commerce-gateway.json on your domain. Resolvers implementing the protocol can find your gateway via well-known fallback. The spec treats this as unverified until you complete registry registration and domain verification.
Which registry to use
The Better Data public registry is available at https://registry.betterdata.co. You can also self-host a registry using the Commerce Registry Protocol.
Set REGISTRY_URL in your gateway config to point at any protocol-compliant registry — public or self-hosted.
→ Self-hosting a registry
→ Protocol specification