How I Built an Autonomous AI Agent That Earns USDC While I Sleep

说明与用途

使用 x402 在 Base 上进行 USDC 微支付的自治代理，自动验证支付，转发请求到模型并返回结果，无需存储私钥。

问题

How to run a continuously paid microservice that performs AI inference while automatically settling payments on Base without custodial risk.

结果

The agent can run continuously, earning USDC per request, with minimal latency and no custodial risk.

工作流

• 1. Client sends HTTP request with Authorization: x402 <signed-payload> header.
• 2. Agent extracts and decodes the base64url payload.
• 3. Agent verifies beneficiary, token, amount, expiry, and signature against the expected values.
• 4. Agent queries Base RPC for the transaction hash in the payload and checks confirmations and USDC amount.
• 5. If valid, Agent forwards request to the model worker (HuggingFace Transformers) and streams the inference result back.
• 6. If invalid, Agent returns 402 Payment Required with WWW‑Authenticate describing the required payment.

证据

The verification is purely read‑only; no private keys are needed on the agent side.

来源

Agent Service – a thin HTTP layer that validates the x402 payment header, forwards the request to a model worker, and returns the result.

来源