Checkout session
The hosted checkout session, its pre-deposit screening, and why session truth is not payment truth.
A checkout session is the context for one customer's journey through paying an intent. It anchors the user experience — the chain and token the customer is choosing, the wallet they connect, the screening that runs before they can deposit. A session organizes the path to a deposit. It does not determine, and never carries, the payment's outcome.
The session anchors checkout
A session belongs to one payment intent and frames the customer's progression toward a deposit: selecting a chain and token, obtaining a quote, connecting a wallet, and forming a payment attempt. It is the orchestration context that holds these steps together for a single journey.
An intent may have more than one session — a customer who returns, or retries, proceeds under a new session. All sessions for an intent resolve to the same deposit address.
Session truth is not payment truth
A session's state describes where the customer is in checkout. It is never a statement about whether a payment succeeded. An active session does not mean a payment is coming; an expired or closed session does not mean a payment failed or will not arrive. Payment outcome is governed by on-chain truth alone — see Statuses and projections.
An expired session stops new checkout progression under that session, but it does not rewrite anything already recorded against it, and it does not suppress a settlement. A deposit confirmed on-chain settles on its own terms regardless of session state. See Late payments.
Pre-deposit screening
A session is the only point at which compliance acts before a deposit. Tekmerion screens the session context — an IP geoblock check and bot detection — and may block the session before any payment is possible. This is the single compliance gate ahead of a deposit, and it is operated by Tekmerion.
Everything else in compliance happens after a deposit is confirmed, per deposit, and culminates in the merchant's transaction-level decision. The full sequence and the split of responsibility are described in Compliance pipeline.
A session does not gate settlement
Once a deposit reaches the deposit address, its handling proceeds through observation, confirmation, and the post-deposit pipeline independently of any session. A direct transfer can occur with no active session at all; the deposit is observed and processed the same way. The session shapes how a customer reaches the address — it is not a precondition for what happens to funds that arrive there. See Deposit.