Fly.io added a Link Agent Payments connector to Sprites on November 9, 2026, so a coding agent in a Sprite can ask our Link wallet for a one-time card. Can the agent approve its own spend request, who else can use the connection, and what happens to the card number once it's approved?

What should I check, step by step?

1. Turn off Allow all sprites on the connector and grant access by name prefix and labels; when you set both, a Sprite must match both. A connector with no access policy refuses every Sprite, so start from nothing and add only the Sprites that should buy.

2. Limit each connection to the Link account owner's own Sprites. Fly.io describes a connection as one person's wallet; other allowed Sprites can still create spend requests that land on that person's phone.
3. Read the merchant, amount and context on every approval prompt as a claim the agent wrote, not a fact. The context line in a spend request is free text from the agent.
4. Approve only the amount you expect to be charged, and deny requests you didn't ask for rather than letting them lapse, so a pattern of unexpected requests is visible.
5. Treat an approved card as readable by anything running in the Sprite: other processes, tools the agent runs and any prompt injection that reaches it. Neither Fly.io page says the card only works at the merchant named in the request, so treat the number as spendable up to its cap until it's used or expires.
6. Check the limits that apply to you. The Sprites connector card lists 500 USD per request, 500 USD per day and 20,000 USD per 30 days, while Link's own CLI reference lists 5,000 USD a day; plan for the lower figure until you've confirmed which applies to your account.
7. If you set endpoint allow- or block-lists through the Connectors API, remember block rules are checked first and win. They're API-only for now.
8. Delete the connector to cut every Sprite off at once. Fly.io says deletion immediately revokes Sprite access and destroys the stored credential, so you'd reconnect Link from the dashboard to use it again.

Can an AI agent in a Fly.io Sprite approve its own Link spend request?

Sprites connectors store a credential once, encrypted in your Fly.io organization, and route calls through a gateway at api.sprites.dev/v1/gateway/<provider>/<connection_id>/<path>. The Sprite sends no Authorization header; the gateway identifies the calling Sprite from Fly.io's request signature, checks the connector's access policy and forwards the call with the credential attached. Calls from outside a running Sprite get a 401, and the API never returns the stored token.

• For Link, Fly.io's November 9, 2026 changelog says the gateway forwards only the routes needed to request and collect a payment and blocks those that would let the agent approve its own. The connector card says the connection belongs to the Link account that approved it, every spend request goes to that person, and Sprites cannot approve their own requests. In the changelog's example the agent runs link-cli spend-request create with a merchant name, merchant URL, a plain-English context line and an amount of 3500 (35.00 USD); the request comes back pending_approval with an approval URL, the owner's phone gets a Link notification, and only after approval does link-cli spend-request retrieve with --include card return the card.

Which Sprites can create Link spend requests, and who can read the approved card?

Approval is per request, but asking is per Sprite. Any Sprite the access policy admits can create spend requests against the same person's wallet. A new connection allows no Sprites, and the setup steps tell you to turn off Allow all sprites before restricting by name prefix or labels. Fly.io also pre-installs a sprite-api-gateway skill for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and Gemini in every Sprite, so a coding agent there can discover connected providers by itself through the gateway's list endpoint.

• After approval, the card details are inside the Sprite. Fly.io's connector card says an approved spend request returns the virtual card's number, CVC and expiry so the agent can check out, and that anyone who controls an allowed Sprite can read them. Your real card number stays in Link, and the virtual card works once and expires after 12 hours. Within those bounds, whatever can read the Sprite's output can use the card first.

What doesn't Link approval protect against when an AI agent in a Sprite buys something?

The approval prompt shows what the agent put in the request. If the agent was misled about the merchant or the price, the request will look reasonable and the approval will be for the wrong thing. The single-use card limits the damage to one charge up to the approved amount; it doesn't check that the order matches what you wanted.

• Link's limits are per Link account, not per Sprite or per project. If several Sprites or tasks share one connection, or you want a smaller budget for one agent than the account allows, keep that budget in your own system and check it before the agent creates a spend request. Fly.io notes availability varies by organization during rollout, and Link agent payments are available in the US and Canada.