402-mcp exists to give AI agents a wallet and the intelligence to use it — so they can discover, pay for, and consume any API on the internet without human registration, API keys, or middlemen.
Today, when an AI agent needs data from a paid API, a human has to sign up, generate credentials, paste them into a config file, and hope the billing model fits. The agent is powerful but economically helpless.
402-mcp changes that. It speaks the L402 protocol natively, carries its own payment methods, and makes autonomous purchasing decisions within human-set safety limits. The agent discovers a service, reads the price, pays the invoice, and gets the data — all inside a single tool call.
402-mcp is the client side of a machine-to-machine commerce stack. On the server side, toll-booth makes any API payable, and satgate monetises AI inference specifically. Together they enable a world where agents pay for the services they need, operators earn from the services they provide, and no one needs permission from a platform in between.
We believe:
- Agents should be economic actors. Not proxies for human credentials. Not dependents on pre-provisioned API keys. Autonomous participants in a marketplace.
- The human stays in control. Safety caps, payment method selection, and credential visibility are human decisions. The agent operates within those boundaries, not around them.
- Protocol loyalty, not server loyalty. 402-mcp works with any L402-compliant server — toll-booth, Aperture, or any future implementation.
- Three payment rails are better than one. NWC for Lightning wallets, Cashu for ecash, human-in-the-loop as a fallback. The agent picks the best option for each situation.
- Privacy first. Credentials stored locally and encrypted. No data sent to third parties. No accounts, no tracking, no analytics.
- The best agent infrastructure is invisible. One
npxcommand. No configuration required to start. Add a wallet URI when you're ready for autonomy.