Wayforth — A Search Engine and Payment Rail for AI Agents

#ai #mcp #webdev #opensource

The Problem

Every AI agent that calls external services — inference, translation,
data, images, audio — requires the developer to manually find each API,
sign up, manage keys, write integration code, and handle billing
separately for every provider.

One agent workflow can touch a dozen services. That doesn't scale.

The Solution

Wayforth. One install:

uvx wayforth-mcp

Then two tool calls from any agent:

# Discover
wayforth_search("translate text to Spanish")
# → DeepL API       WRI: 82  Tier 2 Verified  $0.0000025/req
# → LibreTranslate  WRI: 71  Tier 2 Verified  Free
# → ModernMT        WRI: 68  Tier 2 Verified  $0.000003/req

# Pay
wayforth_pay(service_id, owner_address, amount_usdc=0.001)
# → Non-custodial calldata. Settles on Base in ~2 seconds.

No API keys. No billing relationships. No integration code.

Works in Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and any MCP-compatible runtime.

What's Live

200+ real API endpoints across 7 categories — inference, data,
translation, image, code, audio, embeddings.

165+ Tier 2 verified services — automatically probed every 6 hours,
90%+ uptime required, auto-demoted after 3 consecutive failures.
No paid placement. Ever.

WayforthRank — a proprietary ranking engine combining semantic
relevance, reliability history, and real agent payment conversion
signals. Rankings improve with every query. (Patent pending)

Smart contracts on Base Sepolia — non-custodial escrow, audited,
Basescan verified. Mainnet Q3 2026.

Tiered routing fee 0.75%–1.5% — the only cost. No fixed fee.
Viable for sub-cent micro-transactions.

The Architecture

Four layers:

Settlement Layer — Base blockchain, WayforthEscrow, USDC
Verification Layer — Coverage tier system, automated probing
Intelligence Layer — WayforthRank, Service Graph, Wayforth Identity
Agent Layer — MCP server, Python SDK, TypeScript SDK, WayforthQL

WayforthRank — How Ranking Works

WRI (Wayforth Reliability Index) is a score from 0–100 combining:

Signal	Points
Base score	50
Tier 2 verified	+20
Zero failures	+10
Probed within 24h	+10
x402 protocol	+5
Agent popularity (7d)	+5 max
Payment conversions (7d)	+8 max

The payment conversion signal is the strongest — it only accumulates
from real agent payments. A competitor needs 12+ months of real agent
payment data to replicate it.

The Data Flywheel

Every search query links to a query_id. When an agent pays for a
service, that payment converts the search record and feeds WayforthRank.
Rankings improve with every real transaction.

WayforthQL — Structured Queries

For agents that need more control:

POST /query
{
  "query": "fast inference for coding agents",
  "tier_min": 2,
  "protocol": "x402",
  "sort_by": "wri",
  "price_max": 0.001,
  "limit": 5
}