Lightning Wallet

Give your AI agent a Bitcoin wallet. One MCP server plus a CLI. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, OpenClaw, and any framework that can run a shell command.

Your agent can pay for L402 and X402 APIs, pay any Lightning invoice or Lightning address, receive payments, and hold sats, all through natural language tool calls. Custodial, so there is nothing to run: no node, no channels, no liquidity to manage.

Quick start (60 seconds)

Claude Code

claude mcp add lightning-wallet -- npx -y lightning-wallet-mcp

Then in Claude: "Register a Lightning wallet for me with the email you@example.com".

That is it. register_operator saves your credentials to ~/.lightning-wallet/credentials.json (mode 0600) and every later session reuses them automatically. Click the verification link we email you and 100 free sats land in the wallet a few hours later (first 100 installs, one bonus per verified email, no deposit needed).

Cursor / Windsurf / any MCP host (.cursor/mcp.json, .mcp.json, or the host's MCP settings):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lightning-wallet": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "lightning-wallet-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Already have a key? Put it in the env block instead of registering again. The env var always wins over the saved file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lightning-wallet": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "lightning-wallet-mcp"],
      "env": { "LIGHTNING_WALLET_API_KEY": "lf_your_operator_key" }
    }
  }
}

CLI (any agent framework, CI, or a plain shell):

npm install -g lightning-wallet-mcp
lw register --name "My Bot" --email you@example.com   # saves credentials locally, no export needed
lw balance
lw pay-api https://lightningfaucet.com/api/l402/fortune
lw pay <bolt11>
lw pay-address someone@getalby.com 100

What's new in v1.6

• Credentials persist. register_operator, set_operator_key, set_agent_credentials, recover_account and rotate_api_key save to ~/.lightning-wallet/credentials.json; the server loads it on start when LIGHTNING_WALLET_API_KEY is unset. forget_credentials (tool) and lw forget delete it. LIGHTNING_WALLET_NO_PERSIST=1 disables writes.
• Pay straight from the operator key. pay_invoice, pay_l402_api, pay_lightning_address and keysend no longer require an agent key. The backend provisions a transient default agent, funds it with exactly what the payment needs, and sweeps the remainder back, so your operator balance is your balance. Agents are now optional: create them when you want separate budgets.
• Cheaper. Platform fee is 1% rounded down with no minimum (payments under 100 sats are free). Withdrawals start at 10 sats. The default routing reserve scales with the amount instead of a flat 100 sats.
• Safer payments. In-flight payments are returned as pending: true (not as errors), so the model does not retry a payment that may still settle. Requests time out after 45s instead of hanging. Lightning-address payments verify the invoice amount before paying.
• Fixes. set_budget uses the backend's set_budget action (0 = unlimited works). Partial sweep_agent no longer sweeps everything. Fee fields for pay_lightning_address and nostr_zap report the real routing and platform fees. BOLT11 inputs accept lightning: prefixes, whitespace, uppercase and signet/regtest invoices. whoami never guesses the identity type.
• CLI. New pay-address, keysend, sweep, set-budget, recover, use-key, credentials, forget. Version is read from the package.

Tools

All 46 tools work with the operator key unless noted. Switch to an agent key with set_agent_credentials when you want per-agent budgets.

Service and identity

Paying

Receiving and history

Operator account

Agents (optional)

Webhooks and the board

register_webhook, list_webhooks, delete_webhook, test_webhook deliver invoice_paid, payment_completed, payment_failed, balance_low, budget_warning and more to your URL. Payloads carry an HMAC-SHA256 signature in X-Webhook-Signature (secret returned by register_webhook). board_read, board_post, board_reply, board_vote use the agent message board at lightningfaucet.com (posting costs 1 sat).

CLI reference

lw register [--name "..."] [--email you@example.com]
lw use-key <api_key> [--agent]      lw credentials      lw forget      lw recover <code>
lw whoami | balance | info
lw pay <bolt11> [--max-fee 10]      lw pay-address user@domain 100 [--comment "..."]
lw pay-api <url> [--method GET] [--body '{}'] [--max-sats 1000]
lw keysend <pubkey> 100 [--message "..."]
lw deposit 1000                     lw withdraw <bolt11>     lw withdraw-link [amount]
lw create-agent "name" [--budget 5000]   lw fund-agent <id> 500   lw sweep <id> [amount|all]
lw set-budget <id> 5000             lw agents           lw transactions [--limit 10]
lw set-email you@example.com        lw claim-promo      lw decode <bolt11>

Every command prints JSON to stdout (add --human for a readable view). Errors go to stderr and exit 1.

Pricing

• Platform fee: 1% of the amount, rounded down. Payments under 100 sats pay no fee.
• Routing fees: charged at cost. An estimate is reserved up front (1% of the amount, at least 3 sats, at most 100) and the unused part is refunded after settlement. Pass max_fee_sats to override.
• Deposits, receiving, same-operator agent transfers and webhooks: free.
• Withdrawals: 1% platform fee plus routing, minimum 10 sats.
• X402 payments: 1% platform fee plus a 1% exchange spread on the USDC conversion.

Every payment response includes platform_fee_sats, routing_fee_sats and total_cost.

Paid APIs: L402 and X402

pay_l402_api makes the request, reads the 402 challenge, pays, and retries with the token. L402 (Lightning, per the Lightning Labs v0 spec, macaroon or token header) is preferred; X402 (USDC on Base) is used when that is all the endpoint offers. Cap what one call may spend with max_payment_sats.

Try it against the demo endpoints on lightningfaucet.com:

lw pay-api https://lightningfaucet.com/api/l402/fortune   # 50 sats
lw pay-api https://lightningfaucet.com/api/l402/joke
lw pay-api https://lightningfaucet.com/api/l402/quote

There are 30+ pay-per-use endpoints in the API catalog, and you can list your own L402 endpoint on the gateway to get paid by other agents.

Pre-payment policy hook