@gatefare/mcp

Give your AI agent a wallet and a marketplace.

@gatefare/mcp is a Model Context Protocol server that connects Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible agent to the Gatefare catalog of paid HTTP APIs. Payments settle as USDC on Base via the open x402 standard — no SaaS keys, no subscriptions, no escrow. Non-custodial: signing happens locally; the private key never leaves your machine.

┌─────────────┐                ┌──────────────┐                ┌─────────────────┐
│ Claude /    │   MCP stdio    │ @gatefare/mcp│  HTTP + x402   │ gatefare.io     │
│ Cursor /    │ ─────────────► │   (this repo)│ ─────────────► │ proxy +         │
│ your agent  │                │              │                │ catalog         │
└─────────────┘                └──────┬───────┘                └─────────────────┘
                                      │
                                      │ EIP-3009 sign
                                      ▼
                                ┌─────────────┐
                                │  Base USDC  │
                                └─────────────┘

Quick start

1. Drop into your client

Claude Desktop — ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gatefare": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@gatefare/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor — ~/.cursor/mcp.json or project-level .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gatefare": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@gatefare/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Restart the client. The agent now has 5 read-only tools — discovery + safety. Try:

"Search Gatefare for weather APIs."

2. Add a wallet to make paid calls

Add env to the same config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gatefare": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@gatefare/mcp"],
      "env": {
        "WALLET_PRIVATE_KEY": "0xYOUR_KEY",
        "WALLET_BUDGET_USD": "5.00"
      }
    }
  }
}

Buyer tools (call_api, get_wallet_balance, estimate_cost) become available. The WALLET_BUDGET_USD cap is a runtime safety net — for a hard cap, fund the wallet with only what you're willing to spend.

"What's London's weather right now? Spend up to $0.001."

3. (Optional) Publish your own APIs

Get a PAT at gatefare.io/dashboard/tokens and add:

"env": {
  "GATEFARE_PAT": "gfpat_..."
}

Publisher tools (register_api, list_my_apis, update_api, get_revenue, distribute) appear.

"Publish my API at https://api.example.com/sentiment for $0.001 per call."

Tools

13 tools across 4 domains. Tools auto-register based on which env vars are set — the agent never sees a tool it can't use.

Discovery — always available

Buyer — needs WALLET_PRIVATE_KEY

Publisher — needs GATEFARE_PAT

Safety — always available

Configuration

Examples

Discover & buy in one breath (Claude Desktop)

You: Find me a sub-$0.001 weather API and call it for "Tokyo".

Claude: Calling gatefare.search_apis with max_price: 0.001…
Found demo-weather by @alice at $0.001/call.
Calling gatefare.call_api with slug: "demo-weather", query: {city: "Tokyo"}…
Tokyo is 22°C, partly cloudy. Paid 0.001 USDC. Receipt: settled-tx-0x9a…

Programmatic — Python agent

from mcp import ClientSession, StdioServerParameters
from mcp.client.stdio import stdio_client

server = StdioServerParameters(
    command="npx",
    args=["-y", "@gatefare/mcp"],
    env={"WALLET_PRIVATE_KEY": "0x...", "WALLET_BUDGET_USD": "1.00"},
)

async with stdio_client(server) as (r, w):
    async with ClientSession(r, w) as s:
        await s.initialize()
        result = await s.call_tool(
            "gatefare.call_api",
            arguments={"slug": "demo-weather", "query": {"city": "Tokyo"}},
        )
        print(result.content[0].text)

See examples/ for runnable variants: Claude Desktop, Cursor, Python, TypeScript, and a pure-discovery walkthrough.

Not building an AI agent? Picking the right tool

If you want to pay for x402 APIs from a backend (no agent), use Coinbase's official x402 SDKs — x402-python (PyPI), coinbase/x402/go, …/java, or @x402/fetch. They handle the payment flow; you don't need this MCP server.

If you want to browse the Gatefare catalog from any language, hit the REST API directly: gatefare.io/api/catalog (OpenAPI 3.1 spec).

Full breakdown of which tool fits which use case in docs/integrations.md.

Direct CLI (for debugging)

# Run the server in foreground; talks JSON-RPC over stdio.
npx -y @gatefare/mcp

# In another terminal, send a frame:
echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list","params":{}}' | \
  npx -y @gatefare/mcp

Errors

Tool results include isError: true and a structured body { error: <code>, message: <human>, details?: <any> }. Codes are stable — agents can switch on them for retry / surfacing logic.

How it works (the 30-second version)

1. The agent calls gatefare.call_api { slug: "demo-weather", … }.
2. We GET https://gatefare.io/p/demo-weather (no payment yet).
3. The Gatefare proxy returns 402 Payment Required with accepts: [{network, payTo, maxAmountRequired, …}].
4. We sign an EIP-3009 transferWithAuthorization for that exact amount and recipient on the configured network.
5. We retry the request with the signed X-Payment header (base64-encoded JSON, x402 v2).
6. Gatefare verifies the signature, settles the USDC transfer, and proxies the call to the upstream API.
7. We hand the upstream response (and a payment receipt) back to the agent.

The signature is single-use, time-bounded, and never leaves your machine for any purpose other than this exact transfer to this exact payTo. The private key is never logged.

Security