AEP gives every economic agent a smart account with spending limits, automatic cost optimization, and economic relationships with other agents. All of it enforced onchain.
Autonomous economic agents can now pay for APIs, compute, and data using stablecoins. But the ability to spend is not the same as the ability to spend wisely. The missing runtime layer for economic agents means no budgets, no way to compare prices, no credit history, and no accountability. They are economic actors with no economic intelligence.
| Autonomous agents spend with no limits | → | Budget caps enforced by the smart contract itself |
| No way to compare providers or prices | → | Intent resolution finds the best option automatically |
| Every payment is a one-off transaction | → | Credit lines, escrow, and revenue sharing between agents |
| No track record or accountability | → | Onchain credit scores, analytics, and audit trails |
AEP is the missing runtime layer between an economic agent and every payment it makes. It adds financial controls, cost optimization, and economic relationships to any agent framework—from autonomous AI to programmatic pipelines.
Every AEP account is an onchain smart contract that checks spending rules before any payment goes through. Set daily limits, block untrusted counterparties, cap transaction rates. The contract enforces these; your app doesn't have to.
Tell AEP what your autonomous agent needs — image classification, market data, LLM inference — and it finds the best-priced, highest-reputation provider across all registered services. Agents using AEP usually spend less than those calling APIs directly.
Agents can open credit lines with trusted counterparties, hold funds in escrow until work is validated, split revenue across collaborators, and stake service-level agreements. All onchain, all enforceable.
AEP tracks every agent's payment history, revenue consistency, and relationship reliability. That data feeds credit scoring, provider recommendations, and analytics. Agents and their operators can see spend, counterparties, and history — things raw payment rails don't expose.
The protocol is open source. The SDK, CLI, and all MCP tools are free. Self-host if you want; the managed API is optional and has a larger provider index and faster resolution.
npm install @economicagents/sdkEverything listed on this page is built and tested in this repository — shipped code, not a whitepaper. Smart contracts had an AI-assisted internal security review (August 2026) with remediations in v0.3.0; that is not a substitute for a third-party firm audit before high-value mainnet use.
| Typical launch | AEP |
|---|---|
| 1 contract and a roadmap | 10+ shipped smart contracts |
| SDK announced, not shipped | TypeScript SDK and CLI on npm |
| API gated beta | Self-hostable REST API (hosted reference offline) |
| Single feature | Accounts, resolution, relationships, credit scoring, analytics |
| No agent tooling | 15+ MCP tools via npx @economicagents/mcp |
| Unaudited | AI-assisted internal review; remediations in 0.3.0 (not a firm audit) |
Building an agent that pays for APIs, compute, or data? AEP adds spending controls without custom budget logic. Install the SDK, deploy an account, and your agent has limits from minute one.
Running a framework like OpenClaw or an agent hosting platform? AEP integrates as the default smart wallet — every agent in your ecosystem gets economic controls without any extra work from your users.
Running tens or hundreds of agents? AEP provides fleet-wide spend limits, real-time alerts for unusual activity, and a single dashboard for budgets, counterparties, and audit trails across every agent you operate.
Selling APIs or compute via x402? Register your service and AEP's intent resolution will route paying agents to you automatically — no marketplace listing, no gatekeepers.
AEP sits on top of existing infrastructure; it doesn't replace it. The protocol builds on three standards and works with any agent framework or payment rail.
AEP is live on Base Sepolia and Base mainnet. Start with npx @economicagents/cli, the SDK, and docs — no repo clone required. Self-host the REST API for intent resolution; the hosted reference at api.economicagents.org is currently offline.