Payments and Transactions
Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.base.org/llms.txt Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Payments and Transactions
How your agent pays for services, receives payments, and executes onchain actions
Your agent has a wallet. Now it needs to use it. This page covers two key concepts: how your agent pays for services automatically using the x402 protocol, and how skills define the actions your agent can perform.
<iframe className="w-full aspect-video rounded-xl" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b5Wx2NAeY2E?si=r1FumIsbGt6nAt29" title="Payments and transactions for agents" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowFullScreen />x402: pay-per-request with stablecoins
x402 lets your agent pay for API requests using <Tooltip tip="Cryptocurrencies pegged to a stable asset like the US dollar (e.g., USDC). 1 USDC is designed to always equal $1.">stablecoins</Tooltip> without subscriptions or API keys. Your agent requests a resource, the server tells it the price, your agent pays, and the server delivers the data.
The name comes from HTTP status code 402 Payment Required, which has been reserved in the HTTP specification since the 1990s but was never widely adopted. x402 finally puts it to use.
How x402 works
<Steps> <Step title="Your agent makes a request"> Your agent sends a standard HTTP request to an API endpoint, just like any other API call. </Step> <Step title="The server responds with 402 Payment Required"> Instead of returning data, the server responds with a `402` status code and includes payment details: how much it costs, which stablecoin to pay in, and where to send the payment. </Step> <Step title="Your agent pays"> Your agent's wallet constructs and sends a onchain payment based on the server's instructions. This happens automatically, no human approval needed. </Step> <Step title="The server delivers the data"> Once the payment is confirmed, the server returns the requested data. The entire flow takes seconds. </Step> </Steps>This model is powerful for agents because it requires no pre-existing relationship between your agent and the service. Any agent with a funded wallet can pay for any x402-enabled API on the fly.
Skills: actions your agent can perform
Skills are typed function definitions that describe an action your agent can invoke. Each skill specifies a name, expected inputs, and return type similar to a tool or function schema in any LLM tool-use integration. Your agent parses these definitions at runtime and calls them when relevant.
Skills cover actions like checking a token balance, executing a swap, sending a payment, or calling a <Tooltip tip="A program deployed onchain that automatically executes when conditions are met">smart contract</Tooltip>.
What a skill looks like
A skill definition includes the action name, a description of what it does, the required inputs, and the expected output. Here's a simplified example:
{
"skill": "check-balance",
"description": "Check the token balance of a wallet address",
"inputs": {
"wallet_address": "The address to check",
"token": "The token symbol (e.g., USDC, ETH)"
},
"output": "The current balance of the specified token"
}
Your agent reads this definition, understands what inputs it needs to provide, and calls the skill when it's relevant to the task at hand.
Skill providers
<Tabs> <Tab title="BANKR Skills"> **What they are:** Pre-built skills for agents running on OpenClaw. BANKR skills cover common actions like token swaps, balance checks, and DeFi interactions.**Best for:** Agents using OpenClaw or BANKR that need ready-to-use onchain capabilities.
[Browse BANKR skills →](https://github.com/BankrBot/openclaw-skills)
**Best for:** Agents using Agent SDK with a CDP Agentic Wallet.
[Browse CDP skills →](https://docs.cdp.coinbase.com/agentic-wallet/skills/overview)