nevermined-payments

What This Skill Does

The nevermined-payments skill provides a robust financial infrastructure for AI agents to monetize their services, enforce access control, and manage per-request billing. By implementing the x402 payment protocol, this skill transforms standard API endpoints and AI tools into revenue-generating assets. It enables agents to automatically request payment via HTTP 402 status codes, verify payment proofs, and handle credit-based billing cycles. This integration allows developers to support diverse billing structures, from one-off request purchases to subscription-based plans, seamlessly within TypeScript and Python environments like Express.js and FastAPI.

Installation

To integrate this skill into your environment, use the OpenClaw command line interface:

1. Install via CLI: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/aaitor/nevermined-payments
2. Configure your environment: Add NVM_API_KEY, NVM_ENVIRONMENT (sandbox/live), and NVM_PLAN_ID to your project's .env file.
3. SDK Integration: Install the official SDK corresponding to your stack. For Node.js, use npm install @nevermined-io/payments. For Python, use pip install payments-py.
4. Initialize the client: Use the provided boilerplate to initialize the Payments instance within your server middleware to start intercepting requests.

Use Cases

• Monetizing Private Tools: Protect internal AI tools or scraping utilities by requiring users to pay for each individual task execution.
• Agent-to-Agent Payments: Facilitate secure, automated micro-transactions between disparate AI agents using the Google A2A protocol.
• SaaS API Gateways: Build subscription-based access layers for AI models, where users must have an active payment plan to reach protected endpoints.
• Metered Billing: Charge users specifically for the compute or tokens consumed during an agent's task execution, rather than flat monthly fees.

Example Prompts

• "Can you help me set up the nevermined-payments middleware in my FastAPI app so that my tool '/generate-report' requires a payment to access?"
• "How do I configure my environment variables to switch from sandbox testing to the live Nevermined production environment for my agent?"
• "Please explain how an MCP server should handle the 402 payment required response when it detects an unauthorized request to my payment-gated tool."

Tips & Limitations

• Always start in Sandbox: Never skip testing in the sandbox environment; the billing flows involve real-time interactions with blockchain-based credit ledgers that cannot be reversed.
• Middleware Order: Ensure that the payments middleware is placed before your actual logic execution in the request pipeline to prevent unauthenticated access.
• Environment Safety: Keep your NVM_API_KEY secure. Never commit it to version control systems like GitHub.
• Dependency versioning: Ensure your package.json includes "type": "module" if using the TypeScript SDK to ensure proper subpath resolution.