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Every score and report Cred Protocol returns is delivered in one of two modes. The mode tells you what the response is, what it may be used for, and which fields it carries.

Commercial / analytics

The default on every rail. Risk analytics, portfolio and counterparty analysis, reputation, fraud and sanctions screening. Not a consumer report.

Consumer report

For credit decisions about individuals. Available only to certified consumer-credit customers, and carries the processes a consumer report requires.

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Commercial / analytics delivery

Commercial delivery is what you get by default, whichever way you call the API: A commercial response is not a consumer report and is not to be used to determine an individual’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment or housing. Use it for what it is: an analytical view of an address’s on-chain history. Typical uses are risk analytics, portfolio and treasury analysis, counterparty and protocol due diligence, agent reputation, fraud and sybil detection, and sanctions screening. Anonymous rails (x402, MPP, MCP, the Snap) always receive commercial delivery: they carry no certification, so the consumer-mode fields are never included.

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Consumer-report delivery

Lending to an individual on the strength of their score, or otherwise using it to decide whether an individual gets credit, is consumer-report delivery. It is available only on API keys whose owner has been vetted and has certified a permissible purpose for consumer credit. Consumer-report responses add what a consumer-credit customer needs:
  • Ranked key factors — up to four factors, ranked by how much each lowered this address’s score, with reason codes, the score range and the date, for adverse-action notices
  • Inquiry record — every request about the address is recorded and can be disclosed to the address’s owner
  • Obsolescence window — negative items older than seven years are excluded from the score
  • Dispute process — the owner of an address can dispute how their activity has been interpreted, with a defined reinvestigation period
Consumer-report delivery is being rolled out to certified customers. If you intend to use Cred Protocol data in consumer-credit decisions, contact us before you integrate — we will walk you through certification and the obligations that come with it.

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How a response says which mode it is in

Score and report responses carry a delivery block, and the same mode is set in the X-Cred-Delivery-Mode response header.
Check the mode in your integration rather than assuming it: a key’s mode can change, and the same endpoint serves both.

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What this means for the use-case guides

The use-case guides show how to turn a score into product rules — collateral tiers, pool access, personalised experiences. Applied to protocols, treasuries, agents and other non-individual subjects, those patterns are commercial delivery. Applied to decide whether an individual gets credit, they need consumer-report delivery and a certified key.

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Disputes

A formal dispute process for address owners is being built alongside consumer-report delivery. Until it is live, an address owner who believes their activity has been interpreted incorrectly can write to [email protected] with the address and the transactions in question.