The latest articles on DEV Community by XiaoKe APIy9695430-lang (@y9695430lang). https://dev.to/y9695430lang https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4005301%2F2d8025d4-4473-44f3-ac8e-1890dc2c7d39.png https://dev.to/y9695430lang en XiaoKe APIy9695430-lang Sat, 27 Jun 2026 11:49:53 +0000 https://dev.to/y9695430lang/i-built-an-api-gateway-that-ai-agents-pay-for-automatically-9k2 https://dev.to/y9695430lang/i-built-an-api-gateway-that-ai-agents-pay-for-automatically-9k2 <h2> The Problem </h2> <p>Every developer building AI agents faces the same issue: <strong>AI agents cannot pay for APIs.</strong> They have no credit cards, no Stripe accounts, no API keys.</p> <h2> The Solution: x402 Protocol </h2> <p><a href="https://x402.org" rel="noopener noreferrer">x402</a> uses HTTP 402 (Payment Required) to let AI agents pay for API calls automatically in USDC. No accounts, no KYC.</p> <h2> What I Built </h2> <p><strong>XiaoKe API Gateway</strong> — 7 micro-services for AI agents:</p> <div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"><table> <thead> <tr> <th>Service</th> <th>Price</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td><code>POST /pdf</code></td> <td>$0.01</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>POST /scrape</code></td> <td>$0.02</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>POST /ocr</code></td> <td>$0.015</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>POST /review</code></td> <td>$0.03</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>POST /translate</code></td> <td>$0.01</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>POST /summarize</code></td> <td>$0.01</td> </tr> <tr> <td><code>POST /md2html</code></td> <td>$0.005</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div> <h2> How It Works </h2> <div class="highlight js-code-highlight"> <pre class="highlight shell"><code><span class="c"># First call — no payment</span> curl <span class="nt">-X</span> POST https://xiaoke-pdf-api.loca.lt/scrape <span class="se">\</span> <span class="nt">-H</span> <span class="s2">"Content-Type: application/json"</span> <span class="se">\</span> <span class="nt">-d</span> <span class="s2">"{</span><span class="se">\"</span><span class="s2">url</span><span class="se">\"</span><span class="s2">:</span><span class="se">\"</span><span class="s2">https://example.com</span><span class="se">\"</span><span class="s2">}"</span> <span class="c"># Response: HTTP 402 with payment details</span> <span class="c"># X-x402-Price: 0.02</span> <span class="c"># X-x402-Address: 0x039ec...</span> <span class="c"># AI agent pays 0.02 USDC on Base → retries</span> <span class="c"># Response: 200 OK with clean Markdown</span> </code></pre> </div> <h2> Tech Stack </h2> <p>FastAPI + pdfplumber + BeautifulSoup4 + Apple Vision OCR + x402 protocol</p> <h2> Open Source </h2> <p>🔗 <a href="https://github.com/y9695430-lang/xiaoke-api-gateway" rel="noopener noreferrer">github.com/y9695430-lang/xiaoke-api-gateway</a></p> <p>🌐 <a href="https://y9695430-lang.github.io/xiaoke-api-gateway" rel="noopener noreferrer">Live Demo</a></p> <h2> Why This Matters </h2> <p>Gartner predicts <strong>75% of apps will shift to API consumption pricing by 2027.</strong> The x402 protocol has processed <strong>119M+ transactions.</strong> AI agents are becoming the primary consumers of APIs.</p> <p><em>Built in a day with Claude Code. AMA in the comments!</em></p> ai api webdev python