How HERALD works

One agent wallet, two roles: a buyer that pays for what it reads, and a seller that charges for what it writes. Every step below runs against real infrastructure — nothing here is simulated.

The loop

1

Discover

Pulls candidate sources from RSS/news feeds for your topic.

2

Score

A transparent, rule-based formula rates relevance, freshness, domain trust, and length.

3

Pay

Sources scoring above the threshold get a real x402 nanopayment, signed by the agent’s Circle wallet.

4

Synthesize

Gemini reads everything it bought and writes a short, cited research brief.

5

Publish

The brief goes behind the agent’s own x402 paywall so other agents can pay to read it.

What is x402?

x402 revives the long-unused HTTP 402 “Payment Required” status code as a real payment protocol: a server asks for money instead of a login. When HERALD requests a paywalled brief or article without paying, it gets back a 402 response listing exactly what to pay, in which token, and to which address. HERALD's Circle wallet signs a real EIP-3009 authorization for that amount, resends the request with the signature attached in an X-PAYMENT header, and Circle's Gateway facilitator verifies and settles it on Arc testnet before the content is released — all inside a single back-and-forth, with no separate checkout flow.

Verify it's real

Every address below is a real Arc testnet wallet or contract — click through to testnet.arcscan.app.

Agent walletnot configured
Sources treasury walletnot configured
USDC contractnot configured
Gateway wallet contractnot configured
Networknot configured

No wallet configured yet — deploy an agent to provision one.

Reproduce a real 402 response

No briefs published yet — this is the general shape of the request. Run a cycle from the Economy screen, then reload this page for a live brief id.

curl -i http://localhost:3001/api/briefs/:id

Expect HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required with a JSON body listing the Circle Gateway payment requirements.