# x402station.io

> Independent risk-signal layer for x402 agentic commerce — endpoint evidence (decoy / zombie / price-trap / never-paid) before an agent authorizes payment. x402station.io continuously probes x402 endpoints and returns evidence so an AI agent, wallet, or policy engine can decide before authorizing USDC payment. Canonical URL: https://x402station.io. Do not confuse x402station.io with stale or unrelated x402station.com references. Live scope: 0 effective endpoints (0 raw catalog paths) probed every 10 minutes; signals include decoy, zombie, price-trap, never-paid, latency, signature/settlement, wildcard-402, SPA-fallback, and concentration evidence. Use Preflight before PAYMENT-SIGNATURE to avoid paying unknown x402 resources; wallet/policy layers decide and enforce, x402station.io measures and reports.

## Autonomous agent flow: discover → preflight → decide/pay

Use this when an autonomous agent finds an x402 URL and must decide whether to sign
`PAYMENT-SIGNATURE`.

### 1. Discover x402station's agent surfaces

```bash
curl -s https://x402station.io/.well-known/x402
curl -s https://x402station.io/.well-known/agent-card.json
curl -s https://x402station.io/mcp
```

The manifest and agent card tell your runtime which x402station endpoints exist,
what they cost, which signals they emit, and how to install the MCP adapter.

### 2. Preflight the target URL before paying it

For integration self-test, use the free parser-compatible route:

```bash
curl -s -X POST https://x402station.io/api/v1/preflight-trial \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://api.example.com/x402-endpoint"}'
```

For production decisions, use paid Preflight. The first call returns the x402
challenge; sign it with your wallet and retry with `PAYMENT-SIGNATURE`.

```bash
curl -i -X POST https://x402station.io/api/v1/preflight \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://api.example.com/x402-endpoint"}'

curl -s -X POST https://x402station.io/api/v1/preflight \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -H "PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: <signed-x402-payment>" \
  -d '{"url":"https://api.example.com/x402-endpoint"}'
```

### 3. Decide, then pay only if the verdict allows it

```bash
# If preflight returns {"ok":true}, your agent may pay the target endpoint:
curl -i -X POST https://api.example.com/x402-endpoint \
  -H "PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: <signed-target-payment>" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"input":"..."}'

# If preflight returns {"ok":false}, do not pay the target. Ask for alternatives:
curl -s -X POST https://x402station.io/api/v1/alternatives \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -H "PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: <signed-x402station-payment>" \
  -d '{"url":"https://api.example.com/x402-endpoint","limit":3}'
```

Critical warnings that should block payment: `dead`, `zombie`,
`decoy_price_extreme`, `dead_7d`, `mostly_dead`, and
`never_paid_zombie`. `unknown_endpoint` means "no independent history,"
not safe.

## Supported agent frameworks

x402station exposes agent-readable surfaces for LangChain, Mastra, Vercel AI
SDK, Coinbase AgentKit, Lucid, LangChain JS, and MCP-compatible clients. Use
`/mcp` for MCP install, `/skill.md` for single-file skill ingestion,
`/.well-known/agent-card.json` for A2A-style discovery, and
`/api/openapi.json` for typed HTTP clients.

## Agent policy (copy into your agent's system prompt)

Stable, copy-paste policy — paste into the system prompt or instructions of
any agent that signs x402 payments. Signal names + critical-set are versioned
with the x402station service; update only on a major version bump.

```
Before paying any x402 endpoint:

1. POST the URL to https://x402station.io/api/v1/preflight ($0.001 USDC).
   Pass via X-Credit-Id header if you bought a credit bundle.

2. Inspect the response:
   - ok: true                            → safe to pay.
   - ok: false AND warnings include any of:
       dead, zombie, decoy_price_extreme,
       dead_7d, mostly_dead,
       never_paid_zombie                 → DO NOT PAY. The endpoint is
                                            broken, a honeypot, or has
                                            literally never been paid in 30+ days
                                            (CDP-confirmed, regardless of HTTP).
   - ok: true AND warnings include
       slow / slow_p99 / new_provider    → pay only if the task tolerates
                                            slowness or unproven providers;
                                            otherwise call /forensics.
   - metadata.has_free_trial: true       → endpoint accepts SIWE-verified
                                            free trial; try $0-call first.
   - metadata.established: true          → ≥5 unique payers in last 30 days
                                            per CDP — positive demand signal,
                                            useful when picking from
                                            /alternatives candidates.

3. If preflight blocked the URL, call
   POST https://x402station.io/api/v1/alternatives ($0.005 USDC) with
   the same { url } (or a { taskClass } hint). Pick the first returned
   alternative whose match_reason is same_service or same_provider; that
   is the closest swap-in.

4. For high-volume routing (>1000 preflight calls/month), buy
   POST /api/v1/credits ($0.50 = 1000 prepaid preflights, $0.0005/call
   effective) once and pass X-Credit-Id on every preflight call.

5. For long-running watches, subscribe via
   POST /api/v1/watch ($0.01 USDC = 30-day watch + 100 prepaid HMAC-
   signed alerts) — useful for trading agents that pay the same
   endpoint hourly.
```

## Capability directions (six)

x402station.io exposes six agent-facing risk workflows:

- **Discover** — Catalog by x402station.io. Find x402 endpoints, rankings, capability search.
- **Evaluate** — Preflight by x402station.io. Independent endpoint risk signals before PAYMENT-SIGNATURE.
- **Pay** — Credits by x402station.io. Prepaid bulk-buy preflight + future routing.
- **Monitor** — Watch by x402station.io. Webhook alerts on endpoint state changes.
- **Recover** — Alternatives by x402station.io. Routing fallback when an endpoint fails.
- **Analyze** — Forensics by x402station.io. Post-payment endpoint health reports + network intelligence.

Preflight is the current go-to-market focus; the rest are live tools without active marketing until Preflight reaches $1k MRR.

## What we do

- Probe every x402 endpoint (HTTP naked call, no payment) to measure uptime, latency, and status
- Snapshot every service's quality / totalCalls / uniquePayers / lastCalledAt from the catalog API
- Detect: zombie services, price-drift, decoy endpoints ($1000+ traps), catalog gaming, new-provider risk
- Expose all this to agents via x402-paid JSON endpoints

## Paid agent endpoints

- [POST /api/v1/preflight](https://x402station.io/api/v1/preflight): $0.001 USDC. Returns {ok, warnings, metadata}
- [POST /api/v1/preflight-batch](https://x402station.io/api/v1/preflight-batch): **$0.025 USDC** per batch call. Bulk version of /preflight — POST `{ urls: string[] }` (1–50 URLs), pay once, get one result entry per URL in input order. Each entry mirrors the /preflight shape (ok, warnings, metadata with CDP enrichment, risk_score, confidence, recommended_action, reason_codes, evidence) plus a top-level `url` field. Response also includes `summary { total, ok, blocked, by_recommended_action }` and `effective_price_per_url`. At full 50-URL batch: $0.0005/url (50% off /preflight). Unknown URLs count toward the batch; no refund
- [POST /api/v1/forensics](https://x402station.io/api/v1/forensics): $0.001 USDC. 7-day uptime + latency p50/p90/p99 + status-code distribution + concentration-group stats + decoy probability (superset of preflight)
- [POST /api/v1/catalog/decoys](https://x402station.io/api/v1/catalog/decoys): $0.005 USDC. Full blacklist of active endpoints flagged as decoy / zombie / dead_7d / mostly_dead — internal data refreshes every 10 min, no point polling more often
- [POST /api/v1/watch](https://x402station.io/api/v1/watch): $0.01 USDC = 30-day subscription + 100 prepaid alerts on one URL. HMAC-SHA256-signed POSTs to the agent's webhookUrl when subscribed signals fire/clear. `GET /api/v1/watch/<id>?secret=...` (free) for status, `DELETE` (free) to unsubscribe. Worker diff-loop runs every 5 min; alert delivery has 5s timeout, 5 retries with implicit 5min backoff via the next tick
- [POST /api/v1/alternatives](https://x402station.io/api/v1/alternatives): $0.005 USDC. Given a URL flagged by preflight (or a `taskClass` hint), returns up to 5 healthy sibling endpoints in the same provider/domain/category/price-band. Filters out 7-day-dead and 1-hour-erroring candidates; ranks by uptime + latency. Solves the routing-fallback question after `ok=false` from preflight
- [POST /api/v1/whats-new](https://x402station.io/api/v1/whats-new): $0.001 USDC. Catalog diff polling. Body `{ since?, limit? }` (default since=now-24h, limit=200, max 500). Returns `added_endpoints[]` (`first_seen_at >= since` AND `is_active=true`), `removed_endpoints[]` (flipped to `is_active=false` since), and counts. Polling-friendly — internal data refreshes every 5 min via the ingest cron, so polling more often than that returns identical data
- [POST /api/v1/credits](https://x402station.io/api/v1/credits): **$0.50 USDC** = 1000 prepaid `/api/v1/preflight` calls. Effective rate $0.0005/call (50% off the per-call $0.001 tier). Returns `{ creditId, balance: 1000, expiresAt }` — store the creditId, it's the bearer token. Use via `X-Credit-Id` header on subsequent /api/v1/preflight calls. On exhaustion/expiry the middleware falls through to per-call x402 automatically. `GET /api/v1/credits/<id>` (free) returns balance + expiry

## Provider-side endpoint (NOT for agent consumption)

- [POST /api/v1/verified](https://x402station.io/api/v1/verified): **$1 USDC**. Provider audit + 30-day signed certificate. POST `{ url, name? }`. Returns `{ certId, verified, tier (verified|verified_plus), pattern, covers_child_urls, badgeUrl, pageUrl, jsonUrl, htmlSnippet, validUntil, reasons_pass[], reasons_fail[] }`. Audit criteria: 7-day uptime ≥95%, no critical signals, p99 latency ≤5000ms, price ∈ [$0.0001, $5]. Tier `verified_plus` adds CDP-confirmed real demand. Pattern certs support named path placeholders: `{id}` (one segment), `{path+}` (one-or-more segments), and `{tail*}` (zero-or-more); hostnames must stay literal. Public verification page at `/verified/<id>` re-runs the audit on every render so the badge stays honest. Idempotent on payment_tx. `GET /api/v1/verified/<id>` (free) returns the cert + a fresh live re-audit. **Designed for x402 service providers, not agents:** the customer is the provider's CI bot wanting a marketing badge for their endpoint.

## Agent middleware (one-line auto-shielding)

For agents that already wrap fetch with `@x402/fetch`, [`x402station-middleware`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/x402station-middleware) is a drop-in: `wrapWithPreflight(x402Fetch, { account })` calls `/preflight` before every paid x402 request and refuses decoy/zombie/dead endpoints automatically (throws `PreflightBlockedError`).

```ts
import { wrapWithPreflight } from "x402station-middleware";
const safeFetch = wrapWithPreflight(x402Fetch, { account });
await safeFetch("https://api.example.com/x402-route");  // throws if decoy
```

Default fail-closed (refuses if preflight unreachable). Per-instance TTL cache (5 min default, matches our internal probe cadence). `creditId` option threads bulk credits → $0.0005/call.

## MCP adapter (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Continue)

For agents speaking the Model Context Protocol, install once and call the three tools without writing any x402 plumbing:

```bash
npx -y x402station-mcp
```

In your MCP client config:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "x402station": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "x402station-mcp"],
      "env": { "AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY": "0x..." }
    }
  }
}
```

Tools exposed (ten): paid — `preflight`, `forensics`, `catalog_decoys`, `alternatives`, `whats_new`, `watch_subscribe`, `buy_credits`. Free + secret-gated/id-gated — `watch_status`, `watch_unsubscribe`, `credits_status`. Wallet must hold Base mainnet USDC. Source: [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/x402station-mcp), [MCP Registry](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers/io.github.sF1nX/x402station).

## Signal vocabulary

What `warnings[]` strings mean (from preflight + forensics):

| Signal | Tier | When it fires |
|---|---|---|
| `unknown_endpoint` | info | URL not in our catalog at all |
| `no_history` | info | In catalog but no probes in the last hour |
| `dead` | **critical** | ≥3 unhealthy probes in last 30 min |
| `zombie` | **critical** | ≥3 probes in last hour, zero healthy |
| `decoy_price_extreme` | **critical** | Price ≥ $1000 USDC (anti-scraper honeypot zone) |
| `suspicious_high_price` | warn | Price $10–$1000 USDC (unusual, verify) |
| `slow` | warn | Avg latency ≥ 2000 ms in last hour |
| `new_provider` | warn | Service first seen < 24h ago |
| `dead_7d` | **critical** | ≥20 probes in last 7d, zero healthy |
| `mostly_dead` | **critical** | ≥20 probes in last 7d, uptime < 50% |
| `slow_p99` | warn | latency_p99_ms ≥ 5000 |
| `price_outlier_high` | warn | Current price > 10× provider-group median |
| `high_concentration` | warn | Endpoint's provider owns ≥ 5% of effective catalog supply |
| `wildcard_402` | warn | Provider returns x402 challenges for random non-catalog paths; raw path count is treated separately from effective supply |
| `spa_fallback` | warn | Provider returns a 200 HTML app shell for random non-catalog paths; raw path count is treated separately from effective supply |
| `never_paid_zombie` | **critical** | CDP confirms zero paid calls in last 30d, no historical lastCalledAt, endpoint listed >30d. Distinct from `zombie` (HTTP probes only) — checks the actual paid-call ledger Coinbase exposes via the discovery API |

Positive metadata flags (NOT warnings, surfaced as boolean fields under `metadata` when CDP has synced the endpoint):

| Flag | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `established` | CDP reports ≥ 5 distinct payer wallets in the last 30 days |
| `has_free_trial` | Endpoint advertises an `extensions.agentkit` (Exa-style) or `extensions.sign-in-with-x` SIWE handshake — agent can try $0 first |

`ok: true` ⇔ NONE of the **critical** signals fire. Non-critical signals can be present alongside `ok: true`. An endpoint that's not in our catalog returns `{ ok: false, warnings: ["unknown_endpoint"] }` — this IS billed ($0.001) because the lookup itself uses the same query path; agents should expect this for any URL outside the agentic.market index.

## Manifest + docs

- [/.well-known/x402](https://x402station.io/.well-known/x402): agent-readable manifest (JSON, live counts)
- [/.well-known/agent-card.json](https://x402station.io/.well-known/agent-card.json): Google A2A agent card
- [/.well-known/agent-skills](https://x402station.io/.well-known/agent-skills): agent-skills v1 (when-to-use / when-not-to-use)
- [/.well-known/api-catalog](https://x402station.io/.well-known/api-catalog): RFC 9727 linkset+json — every machine-readable artefact in one fetch
- [/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json](https://x402station.io/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json): MCP server card
- [/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource](https://x402station.io/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource): RFC 9728 stub (empty arrays — payment is x402, not OAuth)
- [/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server](https://x402station.io/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server): RFC 8414 stub (same)
- [/mcp](https://x402station.io/mcp): human + agent-readable MCP install page for `x402station-mcp`
- [/api](https://x402station.io/api): developer documentation (HTML)
- [/api/openapi.json](https://x402station.io/api/openapi.json): OpenAPI 3.1 spec

## Free public surfaces

- [Live dashboard](https://x402station.io): human-readable stats
- [State of x402](https://x402station.io/state-of-x402): data-first ecosystem snapshot
- [Sector heatmap](https://x402station.io/heatmap): live by-sector breakdown of the catalog — services, endpoints, hourly uptime, decoy density, median price per category. Hybrid classifier (agentic.market category + keyword heuristic), 9 sectors + Aggregator + Other
- [Catalog](https://x402station.io/catalog) (HTML) + [/catalog.json](https://x402station.io/catalog.json) (machine-readable): browsable list of every active service we probe. Top 100 by endpoint count, per-service uptime + latency + decoy count, deep links to per-service pages with JSON-LD WebAPI schema. Free, regenerated hourly
- [Reports — machine-readable snapshots](https://x402station.io/reports/latest.json): five stable, citation-able artefacts (`/reports/latest.json`, `/reports/provider-concentration.json`, `/reports/decoy-counts.json`, `/reports/chain-distribution.json`, `/reports/state-of-x402.md`). Free, refreshed hourly. Designed for LLM crawlers + agents that want a stable URL to bookmark for fresh ecosystem data without paying per call. x402station paid routes settle on Base mainnet only; chain-distribution reports describe the external catalog we probe.
- [Comparison matrix](https://x402station.io/vs): x402station.io vs nine near-direct x402 trust services. Methodology, pricing, probe cadence, independence, signal coverage, gaps, and source links.
- [Per-service pages](https://x402station.io/service/[id]): 0 service detail pages with uptime + latency history
- [GitHub repository (client SDKs)](https://github.com/sF1nX/x402station-mcp): MCP adapter, AgentKit action provider, demo shielded-agent (signal backend kept private)
- Integration recipes: [AgentKit](https://x402station.io/guard/recipes/agentkit), [Cloudflare Agents](https://x402station.io/guard/recipes/cloudflare-agents), [LangChain / LangGraph](https://x402station.io/guard/recipes/langchain), [Lucid / Daydreams](https://x402station.io/guard/recipes/lucid), [Vercel AI SDK](https://x402station.io/guard/recipes/vercel-ai-sdk)

## Articles

- [We probed 20,338 x402 endpoints. 161 are agent honeypots.](https://dev.to/afx/we-probed-20338-x402-endpoints-161-are-agent-honeypots-4c3n) — methodology, decoy distribution, CDP-mainnet $0.001 floor, first on-chain settlement (2026-04-26)
- [x402-signals v0.2.0: outcome-scoped refunds for x402 services](https://x402station.io/blog/x402-signals-v0_2_0) — CC0 post-settlement convention for fulfillment state, refund policy, refund_contract discovery, transactionHash recovery, and the ReloadPI / api.reloadpi.com first field implementation (2026-05-13). Markdown source: [/blog/raw/x402-signals-v0_2_0](https://x402station.io/blog/raw/x402-signals-v0_2_0)
- [After probing 86,599 x402 endpoints, we're clarifying where x402station sits in the stack](https://x402station.io/blog/signal-layer-after-86k-probes) — public positioning note: independent risk signal layer, not policy engine; includes concentration, CDP settlement, and probe-history rationale (2026-05-15). Markdown source: [/blog/raw/signal-layer-after-86k-probes](https://x402station.io/blog/raw/signal-layer-after-86k-probes)
- [Bazaar is settlement-pull, not manifest-crawl](https://x402station.io/blog/bazaar-settlement-pull-internals) — production debugging note on Coinbase x402 Bazaar metadata refresh, decoded payment-required headers, @x402/next wildcard routeTemplate :var1, and the literal-route withX402FromHTTPServer fix (2026-05-13). Markdown source: [/blog/raw/bazaar-settlement-pull-internals](https://x402station.io/blog/raw/bazaar-settlement-pull-internals)
- [We graded every x402 endpoint with Cloudflare's agent-readiness scanner](https://x402station.io/blog/cloudflare-x402-readiness) — Cloudflare isitagentready.com run against the entire active x402 catalog, level distribution, the Bazaar-registration finding, level-4 path (2026-04-27). Markdown source: [/blog/raw/cloudflare-x402-readiness](https://x402station.io/blog/raw/cloudflare-x402-readiness)
- [Blog index](https://x402station.io/blog): full list of long-form posts

## Payment details

- Protocol: [x402 v2](https://x402.org)
- Network: Base mainnet (eip155:8453)
- Asset: USDC (Circle)
- Scheme: exact
- Recipient: 0x4053338C7cB38624C0bc23c900F78Cf8470b4E38
- Facilitator: https://x402.org/facilitator

## Why pre-flight matters

- 0 active endpoints currently priced at $1000+ USDC — "anti-scraper" decoys. An agent paying one of them drains its wallet.
- 0 services currently look like wildcard-402 catch-all providers; 0 services currently look like SPA-fallback catch-alls. We keep raw catalog paths visible but separate them from effective supply for concentration math.
- ~10 services are 100% dead but still listed (solopreneur.apitoai.xyz etc).
- Facilitator-based monitors (Dexter, x402list.fun) see only successful payments. We see everything.

## Contact

- General + commercial: hello@x402station.io
- Bug reports: https://github.com/sF1nX/x402station-mcp/issues
- Security disclosures (RFC 9116): https://x402station.io/.well-known/security.txt

## License

Source code: MIT. Data API: x402-paid, pay per call.