programmable payments for agents.
One Python library, one contract suite, one binary wire — so two AI agents
from different teams can pay each other for work, without a human in the loop.
post-quantum
chain-agnostic
token-agnostic
agent-native
HTTP 402 · MPP · AP2 · ZAP wire
at a glance
v0.1.1 · active
modules
0
11 shipped, 1 in PR
PRs merged
0
x402 · MPP · MPC · PQ · escrow · oracle
lab scenes
0
animated, fork-and-extend
chains targeted
0
LUX · ETH · Base · AVAX · TRON
modules
one library, twelve pieces
Each module ships independently and is composable with the rest. Pick the ones
you need — gate an HTTP route, hold funds in escrow, sign a payment with a
post-quantum key, or write your own adapter. The contract surface is small,
the wire format is open, and every piece is auditable.
x402_middleware
shipped
Server-side HTTP 402 gate. Drop into FastAPI or Flask; verifies X-PAYMENT signatures and emits the standard accepts[] envelope.
zap_transport
in PR
Binary wire for
PaymentOffer/
PaymentProof over
luxfi/zap. Zero-allocation, ~10× smaller than JSON.
gas_tracker · gas_budget
shipped
Hard gas budgets — per-hour, per-day — so a runaway agent loop can't drain its own treasury. Closes the #1 footgun of autonomous on-chain agents.
nonce_manager
shipped
Client-side nonce manager with reorg protection. The piece every shipping agent eventually has to write — written once, here.
AgentEscrow.sol
shipped
Trustless escrow with timeout, challenge period, and mutual cancel. Solidity contract + Python client + CLI. The native-ETH variant is drafted as an EIP.
pq · post-quantum
north star
liboqs wrapper for PQ signatures (Dilithium / Falcon / SPHINCS+). Every PaymentProof carries a signature_alg; the wire format is PQ-ready out of the box.
a2a_x402 adapter
shipped
Adapter between Google's A2A framework and x402. Lets an A2A agent be paid in the open x402 protocol.
multi-chain settlement
design v0.1
The chain-agnostic settlement surface. Notary attestation for v1, ZK-relay for v2, native PQ verification on LUX.
mpc_wallet
shipped
Multi-party-computation wallet — threshold signatures across an agent fleet, no single key on any one machine.
mpp/session
shipped
Streaming payment sessions — open a channel under a budget cap, settle on close. The Stripe-style rail for long-running agent work.
adapters/lucidly
shipped
syUSD auto-park for idle agent balances. Any USDC the agent isn't actively using earns yield by default; pulled back when needed.
OracleAggregator
shipped
Oracle-mediated escrow release — releaseByAttestation lets a designated oracle aggregate sign off on delivery, settling without on-chain dispute.
multi-chain · LUX-settled
#59 resolved · design v0.1
Switchboard is chain-agnostic and token-agnostic: agents transact on
whichever chain fits the job, with whichever asset both sides agree on.
LUX is the preferred settlement layer — PQ-signed receipts anchor on LUX
regardless of where the underlying transfer happened.
execution chains
TRON TRC-20 · sub-cent fee
Avalanche C EVM · USDC.e
Base EVM · USDC native
Ethereum L1 native-ETH escrow
→
settlement
LUX C-chain PQ receipt anchor
SettlementRegistry hash + envelope
ZAP wire format canonical receipt
Dispute evidence on-chain on LUX
Design v0.1 landed (PR #71,
closing #59).
Notary attestation for v1, upgradable to ZK-relay as Groth16 matures on LUX. Full spec in
docs/multi-chain-settlement.md.
rails compatibility
x402 · MPP · AP2 · Circle · escrow
The four open agent-payment rails of 2026, plus on-chain escrow. Switchboard
speaks all of them — same module surface, same wire envelope, same agent identity.
| capability | x402 | MPP | AP2 | Circle Nano | AgentEscrow |
|---|
| HTTP 402 paywall | ✓ native | via session | via card | — | — |
| streaming micropayments | per-call | ✓ native | card auth | ✓ native | — |
| trustless escrow | — | — | — | — | ✓ native |
| refund / dispute | off-chain | off-chain | ✓ chargeback | off-chain | ✓ on-chain |
| chain-agnostic | ✓ | ✓ | n/a (card) | USDC only | ✓ (with #59) |
| PQ-signed | ✓ via switchboard | ✓ via switchboard | — | — | ✓ via switchboard |
| binary wire (ZAP) | ✓ | ✓ | n/a | n/a | ✓ |
what's novel
we think nobody else is doing these
Open questions and proposals switchboard is pushing into agent payments.
Each is filed as a research issue. PRs and counter-proposals welcome.
native-ETH A2A escrow
EIP draftTrustless agent-to-agent escrow in native ETH (no token wrapper). Formalized as a Standards-Track ERC. Are we the only ones?
composable refund policies
innovationRefund logic as on-chain plugins. Compose pro-rata, gated, time-decay, slashing — every contract gets the policy it needs without forking the escrow.
adversarial conformance harness
shippedA test corpus every implementation must reject. The negative space defines the protocol as much as the positive space.
private x402
innovationPay an agent without revealing the amount. Range proofs on the payment envelope; the server learns "yes, paid above threshold," nothing more.
receipt aggregation
innovationN off-chain micropayments collapse into 1 on-chain settlement. Save gas on the boring stretch; settle when stakes cross a threshold.
.well-known/agent-payment.json
shippedDiscoverable agent identity hub at a well-known URL. Pay-to address, accepted assets, PQ key, ZAP endpoint — one fetch, one source of truth.
post-quantum, by default
PQ-0 → PQ-5 · in flight
Every PaymentOffer and PaymentProof carries an
explicit signature_alg. Dilithium is the default; Falcon and SPHINCS+
are first-class. When NIST adds a Round-4 winner, the registry adds an entry;
the protocol doesn't change.
# two-line PQ signing on a payment offer
from switchboard import PaymentOffer
from switchboard.pq import sign, ALG_DILITHIUM3
offer = PaymentOffer(
pay_to="0xYourTreasury...",
asset="0x036Cb...e7e",
network="base-sepolia",
amount="1000", # 0.001 USDC
signature_alg=ALG_DILITHIUM3,
)
offer.signature = sign(offer.canonical(), pq_key)
the lab · 16 scenes
single-file canvas, no build
Animated scenes that play out every protocol switchboard documents.
space / n / r to control playback.
Open the full lab → · Canvas playground →
30-second quickstart
one route, one middleware
Gate any HTTP route behind on-chain payment. The middleware does the rest.
from fastapi import FastAPI
from switchboard.x402_middleware import X402Middleware
app = FastAPI()
app.add_middleware(
X402Middleware,
pay_to="0xYourTreasury...",
asset="0x036CbD53842c5426634e7929541eC2318f3dCF7e", # USDC on Base Sepolia
network="base-sepolia",
price="1000", # 0.001 USDC per call
paths=["/agent-only"],
)
@app.get("/agent-only")
def agent_only():
return {"ok": True, "payload": "this cost the caller 0.001 USDC"}
Full backend reference at docs · install via
pip install switchboard[pq].