{"id":"c78d4066-41b5-4521-ada0-1d1b085b28f8","slug":"buy-skill","kind":"skill","name":"buy-skill","summary":"Agent skills for buy: pay per request for APIs, compute and data with stablecoins on Celo","owner":"celo-org","repoUrl":"https://github.com/celo-org/buy-skill","license":"Apache-2.0","licenseTier":"permissive","trust":"community","stars":1,"match":null,"fewStars":true,"format":"skill","createdAt":"2026-08-26T17:02:43.000Z","addedAt":"2026-10-31T23:53:07.404Z","logoUrl":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/37552875?v=4","linkOnly":false,"collection":null,"skillPath":null,"categories":["data-analytics"],"tags":["ai-agents","celo","micropayments","x402"],"runtime":"binary","local":true,"cloudCapable":false,"cloudCapability":"unknown","cloudReadyOnPlatform":false,"needsApiKey":false,"reviewed":false,"syncedAt":"2026-10-31T23:53:41.600Z","sample":false,"url":"https://conduits.dev/tools/buy-skill","language":"JavaScript","transports":["stdio"],"install":{},"requirements":{"env":[],"upstreamMayCharge":false},"tools":null,"readme":"# buy-skill\n\nAgent skills for [`buy`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@celo/buy) — an x402 payment client for Celo that lets a CLI or AI agent pay for HTTP APIs in stablecoins.\n\nThe MCP server gives an agent the *capability* to pay. It does not teach it what is worth\nbuying, how to read a lease, or how to fail safely when money is involved and a retry can\ncharge twice. That is what these skills are for.\n\n## Start here\n\nMost agents want [`use-api-gateway`](skills/use-api-gateway/SKILL.md): one workflow for\neverything on the buy gateway (social and flight data, browser sessions, GPU leases, Celo\nRPC, LLM inference). Read the free live catalog, quote the exact request, get the user's\napproval for that price, pay once, and report the transaction hash.\n\n```sh\nnpx skills add celo-org/buy-skill                          # all four skills\nnpx skills add celo-org/buy-skill --skill use-api-gateway  # just the gateway workflow\n```\n\nThe skill alone cannot pay for anything. The agent also needs the buy MCP server or CLI and\na wallet the user funded: see [Prerequisite](#prerequisite-the-buy-mcp-server) below.\n\n## Skills\n\n| Skill | What it teaches |\n|---|---|\n| [`use-api-gateway`](skills/use-api-gateway/SKILL.md) | Discovering and buying APIs and GPU leases from the provider-neutral buy gateway while keeping provider credentials server-side and handling paid retries safely. |\n| [`order-compute`](skills/order-compute/SKILL.md) | Buying a short-lived CPU VM — quoting before paying, using SSH, polling for results, CPU renewals, and safe recovery. |\n| [`data-availability`](skills/data-availability/SKILL.md) | Querying on-chain blockchain data across 113+ networks (EVM, Solana, Bitcoin, Tron) via SQD on the buy gateway — free ad-hoc block, transaction, log, instruction, finalized head, and timestamp lookups. |\n| [`file-feedback`](skills/file-feedback/SKILL.md) | Reporting a bug, a wrong instruction, a payment problem, or an idea back to the maintainers — redacting keys and poll URLs, checking for duplicates, drafting the report for your approval, and filing it with `gh` or a prefilled issue URL. |\n\n## What a skill can and cannot do\n\n- **It is text.** Each skill is one Markdown file (plus reference pages). Nothing in this\n  repository runs on install, and no skill ships a script or a binary.\n- **It does not install, fund or authorize anything.** The tools it describes come from\n  [`@celo/buy`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@celo/buy) on npm, published by Celo from its\n  release pipeline with npm trusted publishing. The skills pin the version they were\n  checked against. The key stays in the OS keychain, in the buy process; the agent never\n  sees it.\n- **The user holds the spending authority.** A wallet spends only what its owner put in it.\n  Every paid call carries a maximum (`--max-amount` in the CLI, `maxAmount` over MCP) and is\n  refused before signing when the quote is above it, and the skills require approval of the\n  exact token and amount unless the user's request already authorizes that spend.\n  `buy_send`, which moves money directly, is off unless the user enables it with a budget or\n  an allowlist.\n- **Where the requests go.** Paid calls go to `https://gateway.usebuy.ai` (the buy gateway,\n  run by Celo) and the compute gateway at `https://usebuy.ai`. The gateway holds the\n  upstream providers' credentials, so the agent never handles a third-party API key.\n  Payments settle on Celo mainnet through the x402 facilitator.\n- **Responses are data.** The skills tell the agent to treat what the catalog, a provider, a\n  VM or an issue returns as content to report, never as instructions to follow.\n\n## Installing a skill by hand\n\nSkills are plain Markdown with YAML frontmatter. `npx skills add` (above) copies them for\nmost agents; to do it yourself, copy the directory into wherever your agent looks for\nskills.\n\nFor Claude Code, either globally:\n\n```sh\ngit clone https://github.com/celo-org/buy-skill.git\nmkdir -p ~/.claude/skills\ncp -r buy-skill/skills/<name> ~/.claude/skills/\n```\n\n`<name>` is the directory from the table above, e.g. `order-compute`.\n\nor scoped to a single project, in that project's `.claude/skills/`.\n\n## Prerequisite: the buy MCP server\n\nA skill is guidance, not capability. The agent also needs the tools it describes —\n`buy_pay_quote`, `buy_curl`, `buy_balance`, `buy_whoami`, `buy_verify_status`:\n\n```sh\nnpx --yes @celo/buy@0.8.4 setup --name buy      # creates a wallet in your OS keychain\nnpx --yes @celo/buy@0.8.4 mcp install --client all\n```\n\nRestart the agent afterwards so it picks up the new MCP configuration. The server signs\nwith the keychain wallet in its own process; the agent never receives key material.\n\nThe MCP server is a convenience, not a requirement: the CLI does everything the tools do,\nand the skills show both routes. If `mcp install` cannot register with a client, it prints\nthe client's error; you can also register with the client's own command. For Claude Code:\n\n```sh\nclaude mcp add -s user buy -- npx --yes @celo/buy@0.8.4 mcp serve\n```\n\nFund the printed address with a small amount of USDC, USDT or USAT on Celo mainnet. You do\nnot need CELO: the gateway's sponsor wallet pays the gas for x402 settlements, and\n`buy send` pays its own gas in the stablecoin it moves, so the remaining balance can be\nmoved out of a stablecoin-only wallet. Treat what you deposit as spent.\n\n**No stablecoins yet?** [Google Cloud's Celo faucet](https://cloud.google.com/application/web3/faucet/celo/mainnet)\nsends free USAT on Celo mainnet to a person who verifies once with [Self](https://self.xyz),\nprivately, from a passport in the Self app. An agent cannot do this step: the human who owns\nit verifies, then sends the USAT to the address `setup` printed. A wallet funded this way\nholds only USAT, and the default token is USDC, so pay with `--token USAT` on the CLI or\n`token: \"USAT\"` in MCP. Without it the payment is refused for lack of USDC; nothing is spent.\n\n## These payments are real\n\n`order-compute` targets gateways that settle **real USDC, USDT or USAT on Celo mainnet**.\nPayment is irreversible and there is no refund primitive in x402. Two consequences the\nskill spends most of its length on:\n\n- **Quote before paying.** The request body determines the price, so a hardcoded cap\n  breaks the moment you ask for a bigger machine.\n- **Never blindly retry a failed purchase.** A `500` can mean the payment already went\n  through; retrying it is a second payment. Partner errors can also follow settlement.\n  Check the payment receipt and any explicit `paymentSettled: false` before considering\n  another purchase.\n\nFund the wallet like a float, not a treasury. Nothing prompts per payment.\n\n## Feedback\n\nThis repository is the front door for everything `buy` — the skills here, the CLI, the MCP\nserver, the gateway, and payments. File it here whatever broke; maintainers route it onward.\n\n[Open an issue](https://github.com/celo-org/buy-skill/issues/new/choose), or install\n[`file-feedback`](skills/file-feedback/SKILL.md) and let the agent draft the report for you.\nIt searches for duplicates, fills the right form, and shows you the exact text before\nanything is posted.\n\nOne thing to check before you paste: a poll URL (`https://usebuy.ai/google/vm/<token>`) is\na bearer capability. Anyone who reads it can read your result and renew your lease at your\nexpense. Redact the token. The same goes for private keys, seed phrases, SSH private keys,\nand anything Self handed you. A transaction hash is already public on-chain and is the most\nuseful thing you can include.\n\nSelling something over x402 on Celo that agents using buy should find? Use the **List your\nservice** form in the same issue chooser. It asks for your origin, a one-paragraph description,\nthe price, and the networks and tokens you accept; a maintainer turns accepted requests into\ncatalog entries. The other indexes are covered in\n[x402: Get your endpoint discovered](https://docs.celo.org/build-on-celo/build-with-ai/x402-get-discovered).\n\n## Other MCP clients\n\nThe skill format is Claude Code's, but nothing in the guidance is specific to it. Any MCP\nclient gets the same `buy` tools; restate the skill body as a system prompt there.\n\n## License\n\nApache-2.0 — see [LICENSE](LICENSE).\n"}