Agent Skills: Stripe Knowledge Patch

Stripe Knowledge Patch

Use this patch

Load this skill before changing a Stripe integration, selecting an API release, upgrading Stripe.js or an SDK, consuming events, or using preview APIs.

Before editing code:

1. Identify the request or account API version.
2. Identify the SDK language, package version, and its pinned API release.
3. Separate stable, public-preview, beta, and private-preview contracts.
4. Determine whether each consumer receives snapshot events or thin event notifications.
5. Read the breaking-change notes before relying on generated types or exhaustive enum handling.

Reference index

| Reference | Topics | | --- | --- | | billing.md | Invoices, subscriptions, discounts, meters, Credit Grants, flexible billing, Trial Offers | | checkout-and-payments.md | Checkout, Elements, Stripe.js, PaymentIntents, line items, Payment Records, payment methods, crypto | | connect-and-accounts.md | Accounts v2, Connect, KYC, Financial Connections, balances, payouts, Treasury | | events-and-releases.md | API release lifecycle, snapshot and thin events, destinations, retention, Batch Jobs | | node-sdk.md | Node SDK v18-v21 runtime, types, requests, API pins, and generated contracts | | python-sdk.md | Python SDK v12-v15 runtime, namespaces, objects, Decimal, events, and preview contracts | | terminal-issuing-tax-and-risk.md | Terminal, Issuing, Tax, Radar, Climate, disputes, and test helpers |

Release and contract selection

• Plant-named major API releases arrive twice yearly and can break compatibility.
• Monthly releases retain the current plant name and add backward-compatible features.
• Every API release has an associated SDK release, but SDK packages continue to use semantic versions.
• Plan API and SDK upgrades together; do not infer an API contract from the SDK major alone.
• Treat preview tags as distinct schemas. A nearby stable package or another preview build can expose different resources and field shapes.
• API v2 responses can require include for stored values that otherwise appear as null.

Highest-risk API migrations

Billing schemas and lifecycle

• Replace Invoice Item and Invoice Line Item top-level price fields with pricing configurations.
• Replace top-level tax properties on Invoices, Invoice Line Items, and Credit Note Line Items with tax configurations.
• Read current billing periods from subscription items, not the Subscription object.
• Support multiple and partial Invoice payments; never assume one payment settles an Invoice.
• Replace Upcoming Invoice methods with Create Preview Invoice and replace legacy usage billing with Meters.
• Give coupons an end condition and migrate direct coupon fields to the newer promotion and discount-source shapes.
• Remove Subscription Schedule iterations; represent phase duration with the supported duration fields.
• New Subscriptions use flexible billing behavior by default. Set the desired mode explicitly when lifecycle details matter.
• Do not infer a Refund from partial capture or payment cancellation; those operations no longer create one.

See billing.md for invoice, subscription, credit, and migration rules.

Checkout, Elements, and Stripe.js

• Remove redirectToCheckout and superseded messaging and bank Elements.
• Replace removed legacy PaymentIntent, SetupIntent, and Sources helpers with current Stripe.js methods.
• Rename initCheckout to initCheckoutElements and initEmbeddedCheckout to createEmbeddedCheckoutPage on the newer surface.
• Do not await the earlier synchronous initCheckout; do await the newer Promise-returning elements.update().
• Stop passing booleans to options.layout.radios.
• Review Payment Element future-usage configuration, Customer Session interaction, and Checkout ui_mode validation.
• Configure a layout explicitly if the Payment Element's implicit default matters.
• Collect postal codes explicitly when required for Canadian, UK, or Puerto Rican card payments.
• Read Adaptive Pricing from presentment_details, not removed currency_conversion.
• Do not reuse an Intent client secret in a state that can produce a broken payment form.

See checkout-and-payments.md for payment-method, Payment Record, crypto, and line-item details.

Accounts v2 and Connect

• Model merchant, customer, and recipient roles as configurations of one /v2/core/accounts identity.
• Where an API accepts customer, it can also accept customer_account for an Account with customer configuration.
• Request configuration.customer, configuration.merchant, identity, and requirements with include when those values are needed.
• Require recipient.stripe_balance.stripe_transfers for indirect charges.
• Follow returned risk and onboarding requirements rather than always forcing external-account collection.
• Allow the expanded Financial Connections filters and failure codes.

See connect-and-accounts.md for configuration, capability, balance, and payout details.

Event parsing

• Parse API v1 snapshot events with webhook helpers; they contain an API-versioned resource snapshot and previous_attributes.
• Parse thin notifications with the SDK event-notification parser, then call fetchEvent() or fetchRelatedObject() only when more data is needed.
• Keep payloads away from the wrong parser; current SDKs raise on parser/payload mismatches.
• Do not treat a thin notification's related object as event-time state: fetching it returns the latest resource state.
• Restricted keys need read access to the event's resource; secret keys can retrieve all event types by default.
• Design around the shorter delivery-attempt and resend window even though Workbench retains summaries longer.

See events-and-releases.md for retention windows, destination limits, and Azure delivery.

Billing credits quick reference

• Credit Grants apply only to metered subscription items reporting through Meters.
• Currency must match, and the invoice period_end must be inside the grant's effective window.
• Apply credit after discounts and before tax and the customer's invoice credit balance.
• Credit is consumed at invoice finalization, so draft and preview allocations are provisional.
• Within an invoice, displayed line order controls consumption; across invoices, finalization order controls it.
• Order competing grants by priority, expiration, category, effective time, then creation time.
• Void an entirely unused grant; expire a grant once any amount has been invoiced.
• Voiding an Invoice restores its applied credit, but issuing a Credit Note does not.
• Distinguish immutable-ledger ledger_balance from the broader available_balance.
• Enforce the 100-unused-grant limit using the documented ledger-based counting rule.

PaymentIntent line items quick reference

• Line items support cards, Klarna, and PayPal, with at most 200 entries; American Express receives only the first four.
• Every line needs product_name, nonnegative unit_cost, and positive integer quantity.
• Put transaction identifiers under payment_details.
• Level 2 card data requires an order reference and transaction-level tax; Level 3 adds per-line tax, product code, and unit of measure.
• Do not mix transaction-level and line-level tax, or transaction-level and line-level discounts.
• Card line items cannot accompany partial or decrement authorization or airline, lodging, and car-rental metadata.
• Capture-time line items are unsupported for PayPal.
• Request expand[]=amount_details.line_items; line items are omitted from responses by default.
• Keep arithmetic validation enabled unless mismatch handling is intentional. Invalid card arithmetic prevents network submission and Level 2/3 qualification.

Node SDK upgrade guardrails

• In v18, Stripe.webhooks and stripe.webhooks are objects, not factory functions.
• Replace removed unscoped operation aliases with resource-owned type names.
• Supply your own @types/node dependency when the application consumes Node types.
• In v19, move v2 events under Stripe.V2.Core, use parseEventNotification, and adopt StripeContext.
• Do not send stripeAccount and Stripe context together when the server would receive both headers.
• Adjust v2 response code for optional properties and V2DeletedObject.
• Change v2 list mocks to indexed query parameters.
• Use at least v20.3.1 to avoid crashes from v2 list errors.
• In v21, use Stripe.Decimal for every decimal_string field and Node 18 or newer.
• Keep snapshot parsing on webhooks.constructEvent and thin parsing on parseEventNotification.

See node-sdk.md for the complete pin table, runtime fixes, type removals, and generated contract changes.

Python SDK upgrade guardrails

• In v12, await StripeStreamResponseAsync.read_async() rather than removed read().
• Move service access to StripeClient.v1; direct client accessors are deprecated.
• In v13, use shared top-level request parameter classes and direct top-level exports.
• Pass both Invoice ID and line-item ID to InvoiceLineItem.modify.
• Use parse_event_notification and the typed notification classes for thin events.
• In v15, require Python 3.9 or newer and send payloads to the correct event parser.
• Treat every decimal_string field as decimal.Decimal, constructed from text.
• StripeObject is not a dict; use attributes, bracket access, or to_dict().
• Treat beta and private-preview package pins as separate, evolving schemas.

See python-sdk.md for installer requirements, compatibility removals, caller-owned async clients, and preview resources.

Cross-cutting enum and optionality rules

• Avoid exhaustive switches without an unknown-value path; payment methods, decline codes, risk levels, cancellation reasons, crypto networks, and error-code unions continue to expand.
• Honor fields that became optional, including Issuing Token card references and several reporting fields.
• Honor fields that became required, especially generated SDK fields and preview contracts.
• Preserve decimal quantities as decimal values rather than binary floats or ad hoc strings.
• Treat public and private preview APIs as opt-in contracts and migrate each tagged build independently.

Implementation checklist

• Pin and record the API version used by tests.
• Verify the SDK's associated API release.
• Regenerate or update local types after a major SDK change.
• Test omitted, optional, nullable, and include-dependent fields separately.
• Test webhook signature verification and parser selection with raw payloads.
• Test event handlers with newly added enum values and unknown fallbacks.
• Test Invoice previews against concurrent Credit Grant consumption.
• Test Checkout and Elements initialization without relying on former defaults.
• Test card line-item arithmetic and method-specific field behavior.
• Keep preview-only models isolated from stable-contract code.