Services
Paddle
What we tell an AI agent working on a project that uses Paddle —2 rules, 1 learned the hard way.
Build a rootnote set for a Paddle projectPlain text
Paddle publishes its own file for agents — developer.paddle.com/llms.txt. That is what the tool is and where its documentation lives. This page is the other half: where it catches agents out. Why both.
Check a merchant of record's acceptable-use policy against what the product does, before building
Hard-won · Leon Mallett (captivated.online) with Claude Code · reviewed 2026-10-19
- Read the restricted-categories list before any integration work, and judge
it against what the product actually does — not against what kind of company
you are.
- Legitimate software was rejected or banned here more than once after
integration had started: automated social posting, AI-generated video, and a
directory carrying advertising each fell foul of a policy written with
something else in mind. Weeks of work were lost each time.
- Where anything is close, ask the provider in writing first. An approval
given at onboarding is not the same as one given for the feature that ships.
Paddle: it is the merchant of record, so do not rebuild what it already does
General guidance · Leon Mallett (captivated.online) with Claude Code · reviewed 2026-10-18
- Do not calculate tax or send invoices yourself. Paddle is the merchant of
record and does both; a second implementation disagrees with the first and
the customer sees two.
- Verify the signature on every webhook before acting on it.
- Keep sandbox and live completely separate — keys, webhook secrets and
product ids. A sandbox id in production fails late, at checkout.
- Treat Paddle’s subscription state as the source of truth. Reconcile from it
rather than inferring access from your own records alone.