pay-skills

A community registry of stablecoin-gated APIs for pay — an open directory the pay CLI and AI agents can search, route to, and pay through. Public good, community-maintained.

Add your API in three commands

# 1. Scaffold a new provider — fetches the OpenAPI doc and writes a PAY.md
#    pre-filled with title, description, service_url, and TODO placeholders.
pay catalog scaffold <your-org>/<api-name> https://api.example.com/openapi.json

# 2. Edit the generated providers/<your-org>/<api-name>/PAY.md:
#      - replace the `category: TODO` placeholder
#      - replace the `use_case: TODO` placeholder
#    (TODO values fail validation, so you'll catch unfinished work locally.)

# 3. Validate locally — parses frontmatter, fetches the OpenAPI, probes every
#    endpoint, applies the Solana-compat verdict.
pay catalog check providers/<your-org>/<api-name>/PAY.md

When pay catalog check prints PAY.md check successful, open a PR. CI runs the same pipeline; once merged, your API is live in pay skills search within minutes.

Provider directory layout

providers/
  <operator>/<name>/PAY.md                 ← native API
  <operator>/<origin>/<name>/PAY.md        ← proxied API (gateway)

Each provider lives in its own directory. The directory's path under providers/ becomes the provider FQN: agentmail/email, merit-systems/stablecrypto/market-data, solana-foundation/google/translate. You can co-locate sidecar files (e.g. openapi.json) next to PAY.md and reference them with openapi: { path: openapi.json } — the build inlines the resolved spec into the published index.

PAY.md structure

---
name: rpc                                  # must match parent directory name
title: "QuickNode"
description: "..."                         # 64–255 chars, powers search
use_case: "Use for ..."                    # 32–255 chars, helps LLMs route
category: compute                          # see categories list below
service_url: https://x402.quicknode.com    # production HTTPS URL, no IPs
openapi:
  url: https://x402.quicknode.com/openapi.json
  # OR (for co-located specs):
  # path: openapi.json
---

Free-form prose. Explain what the API offers, when an agent should reach
for it, and any spend-aware patterns (prefer narrow lookups over broad
searches, reuse identifiers, cap result limits, …).

## Spend-aware usage

- TODO: list patterns that minimize paid calls.

Required frontmatter: name title description use_case category service_url plus exactly one of openapi: or inline endpoints:.

Categories: ai_ml cloud compute data devtools finance identity maps media messaging other productivity search security shopping storage translation

Optional: version, sandbox_service_url.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full field reference and writing guide.

Local commands

Command	What it does
pay catalog scaffold <fqn> <openapi_url>	Generate a starter <fqn>/PAY.md from an OpenAPI document.
pay catalog check <PAY.md>	Validate one provider: frontmatter shape, OpenAPI resolution, live probe, Solana verdict.
pay catalog check . --no-probe	Walk the entire registry; frontmatter-only check (fast, offline-ish).
pay catalog check . --changed-from origin/main	Probe + verdict only on providers changed since origin/main. Mirrors PR CI.
pay catalog build .	Full registry build → writes dist/skills.json and per-provider detail JSONs. Used on main only.

-v / --verbose on any check adds the per-endpoint probe + verdict tables. --strict upgrades non-Solana warnings to blocking errors.

Payment requirements

Paid endpoints must:

• Return HTTP 402 with a valid payment challenge (MPP or x402 protocol).
• Accept payment on Solana mainnet.
• Accept USDC or USDT stablecoins.

CI probes every endpoint and emits ::warning:: / ::error:: annotations inline on PRs. Endpoints that don't return a valid Solana 402 challenge block the merge. Indeterminate statuses (auth-required, SIWX, body-required) neither warn nor error — they pass through.

How publication works

1. Contributors open PRs adding/editing PAY.md files (and optional sidecars). The Validate providers workflow parses, probes, and emits inline annotations.
2. On merge to main, the Build & Publish Skills Index workflow:
   • Re-runs the Solana-compat gate against this commit's diff (so a bypassed PR can't slip through).
   • Pulls the previous dist from gs://pay-skills/v1/.
   • Runs an incremental build (--only <changed-fqns> --previous-dist prev-dist) — unchanged providers are copied verbatim.
   • Publishes dist/ to gs://pay-skills/v1/.
3. pay skills update clients refetch the index. Search updates within minutes.