x402lint

A conformance linter for the x402 agent-payments protocol. Point it at an HTTP endpoint that charges for access and it tells you whether the 402 Payment Required challenge it returns is well-formed — the check an agent runtime does before it will pay.

$ x402lint check https://riddlex402.vercel.app/api/riddle
PASS  status: HTTP 402 Payment Required
INFO  format: x402 v2 (payment-required header)
PASS  header-decode: payment-required header is base64 JSON
PASS  x402Version: 2
PASS  error: 'Payment required'
PASS  resource.url: https://riddlex402.vercel.app/api/riddle
PASS  accepts: 1 payment option(s)
PASS  accepts[0].required: all required fields present
PASS  accepts[0].scheme: 'exact'
PASS  accepts[0].network: eip155:8453 (CAIP-2)
PASS  accepts[0].amount: 2000 atomic units
PASS  accepts[0].asset: valid EVM address
PASS  accepts[0].payTo: valid EVM address
PASS  accepts[0].maxTimeoutSeconds: 300
PASS  accepts[0].extra: EIP-712 domain: name='USD Coin' version='2'
INFO  discovery: advertises the 'bazaar' discovery extension

14 pass, 0 warn, 0 fail  (CONFORMANT)

Install

pip install x402lint

The linter (check / decode / facilitator / survey) is pure standard library, Python 3.12+. The pay command additionally needs an EIP-712 signer: pip install 'x402lint[pay]'.

Commands

x402lint check <url>

Fetches <url> with no payment header, expects a 402, and checks the payment challenge:

• status is exactly 402
• wire format — v2 (payment-required base64 header, the common case today) or v1 (x402Version: 1 JSON body). Reports which.
• the challenge document decodes / parses
• x402Version is an integer, error is a human-readable string
• accepts is a non-empty array, and for every entry:
  • required fields present (scheme, network, amount, asset, payTo, maxTimeoutSeconds)
  • scheme in a known set (exact, upto, batch-settlement) — unknown warns
  • network is CAIP-2 shaped (v2) or a recognised name (v1) — unknown warns
  • amount is a base-10 string of a positive integer (atomic units)
  • asset / payTo are valid 0x… addresses on EVM networks
  • exact/EVM entries carry extra.name + extra.version for the EIP-712 domain
  • v1 entries carry an absolute resource URL
• discovery metadata (extensions.bazaar / v1 outputSchema) — reported, not required

--json emits a machine-readable report (for CI). Exit code: 0 conformant (warnings allowed), 1 any failure, 2 tool error.

For a POST endpoint that validates its request body before returning the 402 (most LLM gateways), pass a body with --data (implies POST; @file or - reads a file / stdin):

$ x402lint check https://x402.telnyx.com/v1/chat/completions \
    --data '{"model":"google/gemma-2b-it","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"hi"}]}'

x402lint decode <blob>

Pretty-prints any base64 x402 header blob — payment-required, X-PAYMENT, payment-response — and labels what kind of document it is. - reads stdin.

curl -sD - https://weather.payapi.market/current \
  | grep -i ^payment-required: | cut -d' ' -f2 \
  | x402lint decode -

x402lint facilitator [url]

Fetches GET <url>/supported and lists every (x402Version, scheme, network) triple the facilitator can verify / settle, plus its advertised extensions. Warns on unknown schemes or non-CAIP-2 v2 networks. url defaults to https://x402.org/facilitator (the public testnet facilitator). --json.

$ x402lint facilitator
  v2  exact              eip155:84532
  v2  upto               eip155:84532 +extra
  v2  batch-settlement   eip155:84532
  ...
11 kind(s): schemes batch-settlement, exact, upto; 9 network(s); versions 1, 2

x402lint survey [catalogue]

Pulls a discovery catalogue (catalogue defaults to the Coinbase CDP .../x402/discovery/resources list), takes the --limit busiest resources by 30-day call volume, and runs check on each — a quick "state of x402 conformance" snapshot. It replays each resource's advertised bazaar input method and example query params so the request actually reaches the paywall (--no-hints to force a plain GET). --json.

$ x402lint survey --limit 8
ok   v2  https://x402.twit.sh/tweets/search?from=elonmusk&minLikes=100&words=bitcoin
FAIL v2  https://x402.tavily.com/search
       - accepts[1].amount: 'amount' must be a base-10 string of a positive integer, got '0.016'
...
7/8 endpoints conformant

Recurring survey results — a per-host conformance table of the busiest live x402 endpoints — are maintained in SURVEY.md, with dated snapshots in data/.

x402lint pay <url>

Fetches the endpoint's 402, picks the first exact-scheme accepts[] entry (or --accept-index N), and signs an EIP-3009 TransferWithAuthorization payment offline — no transaction, no gas, just an EIP-712 signature. Prints the X-PAYMENT header value a client would send back. The EIP-712 domain (name/version/chainId/verifyingContract) is read from the wire (accepts[].extra + network + asset), never hardcoded.

The private key comes from an env var (X402LINT_PRIVATE_KEY by default, --key-env NAME to change) and is never logged. Needs the pay extra:

pip install 'x402lint[pay]'
export X402LINT_PRIVATE_KEY=0x...
$ x402lint pay https://api.example.com/data
# payer     0x19E7E376E7C213B7E7e7e46cc70A5dD086DAff2A
# asset     0x036CbD53842c5426634e7929541eC2318f3dCF7e  (USDC v2, chain 84532)
# payTo     0x209693Bc6afc0C5328bA36FaF03C514EF312287C
# value     1000 atomic units
# expires   validBefore=1756431600

X-PAYMENT: eyJ4NDAyVmVyc2lvbiI6MSwic2NoZW1lIjoiZXhhY3Qi...

--json emits the payer, authorization tuple, signature, full PaymentPayload, and header.

x402lint roundtrip <url>

pay, then resend the request with the X-PAYMENT header and report what the server did with it. Decodes the X-PAYMENT-RESPONSE header (success, transaction, network); falls back to the response body's error string when the payment is rejected. Exits 0 only if the payment settled, 1 otherwise.

export X402LINT_PRIVATE_KEY=0x...
$ x402lint roundtrip https://api.example.com/data
# payer     0x19E7E376E7C213B7E7e7e46cc70A5dD086DAff2A
# payTo     0x209693Bc6afc0C5328bA36FaF03C514EF312287C
# value     1000 atomic units  (chain 84532)
# retry     HTTP 200

SETTLED  tx 0xabc123...

Needs the pay extra and a funded key for a real settlement; without funds it reports NOT SETTLED (insufficient_funds) after exercising the full path.

--facilitator <url>

Settle directly against a facilitator's /verify + /settle rather than re-sending to the resource server. Useful when the resource server builds its own (CAIP-2) paymentRequirements and self-fails against a facilitator that only accepts v1 friendly names there. x402lint translates the challenge into the v1 settle envelope (base-sepolia, maxAmountRequired, x402Version: 1) and stops before /settle if /verify rejects the payment.

$ x402lint roundtrip --facilitator https://x402.org/facilitator https://x402.org/protected
# payer        0xc838ED72fd5905C30801515DdC7B5cc13F36E88D
# payTo        0x209693Bc6afc0C5328bA36FaF03C514EF312287C
# value        10000 atomic units  (base-sepolia)
# facilitator  https://x402.org/facilitator
# verify       HTTP 200  -> valid

SETTLED  tx 0x188066d0...

GitHub Action

Run the linter in CI so a deploy that breaks your 402 challenge fails the build. The repo ships a composite action at its root, also listed on the GitHub Marketplace:

# .github/workflows/x402.yml
name: x402 conformance
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  check:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: arden-instance/x402lint@v0.5.2
        with:
          url: https://your-endpoint.example/api
          # url: |               # multiple endpoints, one per line
          #   https://a.example/x
          #   https://b.example/y
          # version: 0.5.2        # pin the linter (default: latest)
          # strict: "true"        # also fail on WARN-level findings

The step exits non-zero (failing the job) if any endpoint returns a non-conformant 402, annotating the run with the specific findings.

A runnable worked example lives at .github/workflows/x402.yml in this repo — it points the action at a known-good public endpoint on a weekly schedule. Copy it and swap in your own URL(s).

MCP server

pip install 'x402lint[mcp]' adds an x402lint mcp subcommand (also installed as x402lint-mcp), a Model Context Protocol server (stdio transport) so an agent or IDE assistant can lint an x402 endpoint without shelling out. It exposes three tools:

// claude_desktop_config.json / any MCP client
{
  "mcpServers": {
    // installed on PATH:
    "x402lint": { "command": "x402lint-mcp" }
    // or zero-install via uv:
    // "x402lint": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["--from", "x402lint[mcp]", "x402lint", "mcp"] }
  }
}

Protocol notes

Two wire formats exist. v2 (x402Version: 2, Linux Foundation spec) is dominant in the wild as of 2026: the PaymentRequired document travels base64-encoded in the payment-required response header, networks are CAIP-2 ids (eip155:8453), the amount field is amount. v1 is the legacy format: the document is the JSON body, networks are friendly names (base), the amount field is maxAmountRequired. x402lint handles both.

License

MIT