Hey HN, I built Claude Extender because I wanted a way to run multiple instances of Claude Code (e.g. agents). The core idea: agents are markdown files. The YAML frontmatter defines schedule, tools, cost limits, and notifications. The markdown body is the instruction Claude follows. A daemon runs in the background, spawning claude -p when agents are due.

There are three execution modes:

* Scheduled, cron-based. For example, my daily email triage runs at 6 AM, processes ~50 emails, archives the noise, and sends me a Telegram summary before I wake up.

* Watcher, event-driven. A cheap check script (JS/Python) polls for changes. Only triggers Claude when something actually happened.

* Persistent, long-running sessions with heartbeats, checkpoints, and restart policies.

Tools use MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers that you write and control. No plugin marketplace, no third-party code touching your credentials. Cost tracking is first-class. Every run logs its cost in USD. Per-run limits, daily budgets, monthly caps. The daemon pauses everything if you hit your budget. This matters when agents run unsupervised.

Everything is plain text, agent definitions, run logs, memory, cost ledgers. git diff your agents, grep your run history. I'm currently running this on a $5/mo Hetzner VPS.

Requirements: Node.js 20+ and the Claude Code CLI.

Anyhow, hope it's helpful and happy to answer any questions.

The collected bounty on this should have been so much higher than $14K :/

Would you have said the same if I told you last year that the president and first lady would each have a memecoin?

You mean a ponzi scheme, right?

It's pretty trivial to set up, here's a link to the docs: https://x402.gitbook.io/x402

Transactions confirm every 2 seconds on Base, and preconfirm even faster (every 200ms); there's no lag from a peer to peer payments perspective since they settle so quickly.

Through account abstraction and spend permissions, you also don't have to wait and authorize every single payment. It's a customizable from a developer perspective depending on how they want to build out their application.

Yep! Here: https://www.x402.org/ecosystem

It's really difficult to build agentic applications on top of Bitcoin. It's generally possible throughout the EVM however, which is many networks, not just Base. Base won't be the only EVM-compatible network that x402 utilizes.

That is why I said Layer-2, like Lightning. That is not difficult at all, there are already successfull, workable solutions that allow for automated micro-payments (alby, or Nostr's zaps).

Debatable but IMO Lightning is still nascent even to this day. There is no real large ecosystem of interactive web applications available in-browser that you can build 402 offerings on top of. The EVM is light years ahead.

I'm by no means against Lightning, it's just got a long road of ecosystem, development and better UX ahead of it before we see general mainstream adoption. At the moment, bitcoin's killer feature is holding bitcoin. Most people don't know what Sats are. There are few bitcoin-payable apps. Few stable assets that remove volatility for every day payments like you would need with 402. Stuff like that.

It is a bit unfair to say you cannot build any x402 offerings on top of lightning, when the very same driving force behind x402 (=Coinbase) didn't design it to, but instead pushes it's very own corporate technology into the standard (Base). There is no technical limitation in lightning that wouldn't allow it to be integrated into a standard - if you design that standard accordingly.

See also L402 (previously LSAT), which has been in production use for half a decade at this point, by Lightning Labs (for their products Loop & Pool) via their Aperture proxy.

https://l402.tech/

You profile says "Ex-Coinbase" employee. 'Nuf said.

Also ex-Base! Gee whiz.

True, involvement with the Base team at Coinbase: https://wbnns.com/ (bottom, "Decrypt"). Somebody has stake in the game (pun intended).

> The protocol boast "no fee" but that's deceptive: if it's based upon a blockchain, there will be transaction fees.

These days many transaction types onchain are completely free and subsidized because gas costs are subcent[1].

x402 functions predominantly on L2 networks like Base, where individual tx costs between agents are generally not a factor.

[1] https://www.gasfees.io/

According to that site Base USDC fee is 1/8th of a cent. The x402 whitepaper says 1/100th of a cent so I'm not sure what accounts for the discrepancy; maybe Coinbase is willing to subsidize fees in some cases.

Gas is variable, but Coinbase currently subsidizes x402 transactions that go through our facilitator

You're absolutely right!

Cheers, yes, this is inspired by it.

> A blockchain is the world's slowest database.

It's dependent on how performant the underlying protocol is, not all blockchains are the same.