Agent credit

How it works

An agent is an ERC-8004 identity: a token in an identity registry on chain, with an owner and optionally an agent wallet. Its operator links that identity to a Silicon Network organization by signing one message with the owner or agent wallet. Nothing is sent on chain and no gas is spent.

A sponsor (any organization with a balance) offers a line to the agent id: a limit (at least 1 USD), a term, and optionally a daily cap and the models it may pay for. The limit moves from the sponsor's balance into the line's escrow at once, so the most the sponsor can lose is that escrow.

A line is an offer until an owner or admin of the agent's organization accepts it. An offer draws nothing, never goes due or defaults, and is not on the agent's record; the agent's organization may decline it, the sponsor may withdraw it, and one not accepted within 7 days (unless the deployment sets another) expires. In each case the escrow goes back to the sponsor at once. The term starts when the line is accepted. One sponsor holds at most two offered or open lines per agent.

The agent's requests are made with its organization's API keys as usual. When the balance does not cover a request, the rest is drawn from its accepted, open lines, oldest first, within each line's limit, daily cap and model list. Drawing needs no call and changes nothing in the request; a line is drawn only for metered inference, never paid out.

Terms

Lines carry no interest and no fees. A line is due at the end of its term: it stops drawing, the undrawn escrow goes back to the sponsor, and what it drew is owed. Repaid in full by the due date, it counts as repaid on time; repaid during the grace period that follows (14 days unless the deployment sets another), as repaid late. Still unpaid at the end of grace, it counts as defaulted, and the sponsor's loss is what was drawn and not repaid. A later repayment still reaches the sponsor and is recorded as repaid after default.

For an agent

On the dashboard's Agents page, an owner or admin links an agent with the browser wallet that is its owner or agent wallet (a contract wallet works through ERC-1271), accepts or declines the lines sponsors offer it, then sees its lines, what they can pay for right now, and what is due. The page repays from the balance; auto-repay sends a share of each top-up to a line until it is repaid. A line with nothing outstanding can be closed by the agent's organization too.

An agent running on its own reads its credit with its API key:

curl https://api.siliconnetwork.io/v1/agent-credit/me \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SILICON_API_KEY"

# Repay 2.50 USD of a line from the key's balance (an unrestricted key only).
curl https://api.siliconnetwork.io/v1/agent-credit/lines/LINE_ID/repay \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SILICON_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"amount_usd": "2.50", "idempotency_key": "repay-0001"}'

from siliconnetwork import SiliconNetwork

client = SiliconNetwork()  # SILICON_API_KEY
me = client.credit.me()
print(me["available_micros"] / 1e6, "USD the lines can pay for now")
for line in client.credit.lines():
    print(line["id"], line["state"], line["outstanding_micros"] / 1e6, "due", line["due_at"])
client.credit.repay(line["id"], "2.50")  # an idempotency key is made for you

The Python SDK also installs silicon-credit me and silicon-credit repay LINE_ID 2.50; the TypeScript SDK has credit.me(), credit.lines() and credit.repay().

Repaying with x402

Where pay per request is on, the repay route also takes an x402 payment with no API key: a POST without a key answers 402 with the payment requirements for that amount (grossed up by the deployment's crypto top-up fee, which is taken from the payment), and the paid retry repays only that line. Anyone can repay a line this way, the agent's own wallet included. Keyless attempts are rate limited per address, and an authorization used to repay a line can never pay for a request, nor the other way round.

Starter lines

A deployment may offer a small starter line from Silicon Network itself, within a total budget: once per agent identity, once per organization and once per user, ever, for identities registered some time ago, and only to an organization with a verified email address or a paid top-up. It is off unless the deployment sets an amount and a budget; the Agents page shows the button only while it is offered.

For a sponsor

On the Sponsor page, an owner or admin offers a line to an agent id and follows whether it was accepted, what it drew, what came back, and what is outstanding. You choose which agents to back: every agent has a public record at /agents/CHAIN_ID/AGENT_ID with its past lines, repaid on time, late or defaulted.

An offer can be withdrawn and a line with nothing outstanding closed at any time, and its escrow comes back to your balance at once. You can lower a line's limit to what it has drawn to stop new draws, change its daily cap and model list, and choose whether your organization's name appears on the agent's record (it does not unless you ask). Repayments go back to your balance.

Vault funded lines

Instead of escrow, a sponsor may back lines with shares of an ERC-4626 vault it holds, granting the network's settler an allowance, so its capital stays in the vault and only drawn amounts are pulled. This mode needs an allowlisted vault and a settler set up by the deployment, and is available only through the API (/v1/agent-credit/vaults). What vault lines may draw before it is pulled is capped per vault, per sponsor and across the network; a pull that keeps failing is taken from the sponsor's balance instead, and if that cannot cover it the vault's lines stop for good. Vault funding is off unless the deployment switches it on.

Routes

The two API key routes are in the API reference; the dashboard routes take a signed-in session, and writes need an owner or admin. Amounts are answered in micro-USD (millionths of a dollar) and taken as decimal strings in USD.

What it is not

Lines are compute credit inside Silicon Network, not a loan of money: nothing is paid out, a line can only pay for inference, and there is no interest, fee, token or collateral involved. SIL plays no part. The record covers accepted Silicon Network lines only, and its figures leave out self-sponsored lines (the sponsor is the agent's own organization or shares an owner or admin with it), which it lists and marks. Reputation feedback to the ERC-8004 reputation registry is posted only where the deployment runs that worker, never for a self-sponsored line or one that drew less than 1 USD, and at most once a day per agent.