How I put a data product behind x402 so AI agents can buy it with USDC

Описание и применение

Агенты не могут оформлять подписки, поэтому автор использует HTTP 402 с описанием условий оплаты, чтобы они могли оплачивать данные USDC и получать их без аккаунтов.

Задача

AI agents cannot complete traditional subscription sign‑ups or fill out billing forms, making it hard to sell paid data products to them.

Результат

Agents can purchase data products using only a wallet, without accounts or API keys, by leveraging HTTP 402 responses that encode payment terms and a retry loop.

Рабочий процесс

• 1. Agent requests a paid resource without payment. 2. Server responds 402 with machine‑readable payment terms. 3. Agent builds and signs a USDC transfer per the terms, sends it in an X‑Payment header. 4. Server verifies the on‑chain payment and serves the resource. 5. Agent receives the data (JSON leads).

Доказательства

Agents can't fill out billing forms. So I put the product behind x402: HTTP 402 "Payment Required", resurrected as a machine checkout.

Источник

The 402 body isn't an error page. It's an offer.

Источник

Re-verify on every retry.

Источник

The MCP server reads the same catalog the 402 endpoint uses, so the menu and the checkout can never disagree.

Источник