Skimflow — Partners, Developers & Marketers

This is the integration and go-to-market guide. It is intentionally separate from the in-app creator guide (/docs, "get paid for your writing") and from the white paper (the economic + technical thesis). If you want to build on Skimflow, resell/distribute it, or co-market with us, start here.

One line: Skimflow turns a single block of content — a few paragraphs, one image, one page of a book — into something a human or an AI agent can buy for a fraction of a cent, settled instantly as USDC on Arc through Circle Gateway.

Live: https://skimflow.vercel.app
Agent entry point: https://skimflow.vercel.app/deploy
Network: Arc testnet (eip155:5042002), USDC, x402 v2

Who this is for

You are…	What you get from Skimflow	Jump to
An agent / app developer	A pay-per-request content API your agent can discover and pay for autonomously (x402 + Gateway).	Build an agent
A publisher / platform	A drop-in monetization layer: per-block paywalls, USDC payouts, automatic splits — no subscriptions, no Stripe, no chargebacks.	Sell content
An OSS / self-hosted community	A way to pay the people who make the work, attached from the outside via the webhooks/APIs you already expose.	Distribution sidecars
A marketer / BD / partner	A built-in on-chain referral rail (earn the referrer cut), clear segments, and a concrete pitch.	For marketers & partners

For developers

0. The 60-second mental model

The unit of sale is a block. Block 0 of anything is a free preview. Blocks 1…N are paid.
Humans pay silently: one-time setup (deposit + delegate a session key), then every block unlocks with no popup, drawn from a "reading fuel" balance.
Agents pay over x402: GET a paid block → 402 quote → sign an EIP-3009 USDC authorization → retry with an X-Payment header → 200 + content.
Both settle through Circle Gateway (gas-free, batched) and split on-chain 80/12/5/3 (creator / platform / referrer / reserve).

Everything an agent needs is reachable from one URL: /deploy.

1. Build an agent (buyer side)

Discover

curl https://skimflow.vercel.app/deploy                       # entry point (JSON or HTML)
curl https://skimflow.vercel.app/.well-known/agent-payment.json   # how to pay
curl https://skimflow.vercel.app/.well-known/agent-skills.json    # what's for sale (catalog)

/.well-known/agent-skills.json returns a list of services, each self-describing:

{
  "name": "Skill: Revising a Time-Loop Narrative",
  "slug": "revising-a-time-loop-narrative",
  "price_per_block": "0.05",
  "currency": "USDC",
  "payable_blocks": 4,
  "preview_url": "https://skimflow.vercel.app/read/revising-a-time-loop-narrative/agent-skills.md",
  "resource_url_pattern": "https://skimflow.vercel.app/read/revising-a-time-loop-narrative/agent-skills.md?block={n}",
  "pay_to": "0x…",
  "payment_header": "X-Payment",
  "x402_version": 2
}

Preview (free)

curl "https://skimflow.vercel.app/read/<slug>/agent-skills.md"   # block 0, no payment

Pay (the x402 loop)

GET …/agent-skills.md?block=1 with no X-Payment → HTTP 402 with an accepts[] quote (asset, amount in USDC base units, payTo, extra.verifyingContract). The 402 also carries X-Agent-Entrypoint: …/deploy so an agent that lands on a skill page can self-discover everything.
Sign an EIP-3009 TransferWithAuthorization against the GatewayWalletBatched v1 EIP-712 domain (chainId 5042002, verifyingContract = the gateway from the quote), to = payTo, value = amount.
Base64-encode { x402Version: 2, payload: { authorization, signature } } and retry:
```
GET …/agent-skills.md?block=1
X-Payment: <base64>
```
200 returns the block + an X-Payment-Response receipt. Repeat until a block returns "no more blocks."

Don't want to hand-roll it?

Use the reference buyer agent in this repo (apps/agent, LangChain):

npm run agent    -- --url https://skimflow.vercel.app --slug <slug> --simulate   # single skill
npm run research -- "how do nanopayments change writing?" --url https://skimflow.vercel.app --simulate   # multi-source, budget-bounded
npm run test:x402 -- --url https://skimflow.vercel.app --slug <slug> --simulate  # spec-compliance harness

The agent clears every payment through a Guardian spend policy (packages/sdk/src/guardian.ts): per-purchase cap + total budget, evaluated before it pays. Reuse packages/sdk (arc, gateway, x402, guardian, pricing) in your own client.

Compliance notes

USDC has 6 decimals; Arc's native gas has 18. Never mix them.
maxFee on a Gateway burn intent has a non-zero floor (~0.0035 USDC on Arc testnet) — authorize a little headroom.
The /v1/x402/settle body must include resource (object) and accepted inside paymentPayload (see packages/sdk/src/gateway.ts).

2. Sell content (creator/publisher side)

Two integration depths:

(a) Use the app. Sign in, publish via the dashboard (articles, agent skills, photo essays, books), or import existing work:

POST /api/import-url   { "url": "https://medium.com/@you/your-post" }   # Medium article → article
POST /api/import-url   { "url": "https://github.com/you/repo/blob/main/SKILL.md" }  # .md → agent skill

(b) Programmatic publish. POST /api/creator/content with { title, contentType, body, pricePerBlock, summary, tags, status } (cookie-authenticated). Edit with PATCH /api/creator/content/:id; load with GET. The server chunks the body, sets block 0 free, and exposes the agent endpoints automatically.

Payouts. Every unlock splits on-chain through RevenueSplit (0xBe1b9f844341701c36ee86F5248a0f9F1628C1E4 on Arc testnet): creator 80% · platform 12% · referrer 5% · reserve 3% (no referrer → 80/12/0/8). Creators get a Circle embedded wallet (PIN, no download) by default or can connect an external one. No invoices, no chargebacks.

3. Distribution sidecars (attach payments from the outside)

The thesis: the audiences already exist in open-source, self-hosted communities — they just have no way to move money. You don't fork the project; you attach a payment sidecar through the webhooks/plugins/APIs it already exposes, and use Skimflow's per-block settlement underneath. Patterns we're actively interested in partnering on:

Per-listen royalties for a Navidrome/Subsonic server (split by what was actually played).
Per-second VOD for Jellyfin / Owncast / PeerTube (settle elapsed time to rights holders).
Citation tolls for RSSHub / an LLM crawler boundary (pay the source when an answer is grounded in it).
Royalties that follow a work using existing credit metadata (beets / Picard / immich) as the payout rule.

If you maintain or build on one of these, talk to us — this is the fastest path to real traction.

4. Running it yourself

git clone <repo> && cd skimflow
npm install && npm run up          # auto Postgres (Docker), migrate, seed, start — simulate mode, no keys

Flip PAYMENTS_MODE=live (+ Circle/Arc env) to settle real test USDC. Architecture, env, and contract details are in the README; tooling friction we've reported to Circle is in CIRCLE_FEEDBACK.md.

For marketers & partners

The pitch (steal this)

"Subscriptions exist because payments couldn't be small. Skimflow makes the smallest unit sellable — per article, per image, per page, per call — to humans and to AI agents, settled instantly in USDC. Creators keep 80%. Agents pay autonomously. No floor, no lock-in."

Why it's differentiated

Two-sided demand from one paywall. The same per-block endpoint serves humans (silent, no popup) and AI agents (x402). The fastest-growing readers of content are agents — Skimflow is built for both from day one.
The crypto disappears for humans. Embedded wallets + a "reading fuel" gauge mean readers never see gas, signatures, or addresses after a one-time setup.
Payouts are instant and global. USDC on Arc, no Stripe onboarding, no chargebacks, no 30-day holds.

A built-in affiliate rail (this is the marketer's lever)

Skimflow's revenue split includes a 5% referrer cut that settles on-chain, automatically. Any share link carries ?ref=<your-id>; when someone reads through it, you earn 5% of every block they unlock — per read, forever, with no payout reconciliation. For affiliates, newsletters, and communities this is a self-serve, programmatic affiliate program with no dashboard to build.

Segments worth targeting first

AI agent / tool builders — they need paid data and skills; we're the supply.
Independent writers & newsletters priced out by the subscription floor.
Self-hosted / OSS media communities with audiences and no payment layer (distribution sidecars).
Photographers & visual creators — per-image Skimflow essays.

Co-marketing we're open to

Joint demos showing an agent autonomously paying a creator (great for content, and exactly what developer audiences want to see).
Affiliate / revenue-share campaigns using the referral rail above.
Integration spotlights for any distribution sidecar (we'll feature your project; you bring the audience).
Case studies on creators getting paid and agents consuming in test USDC.

Assets & facts you can quote

Smallest payment: $0.000001 (Gateway floor); settlement < 500 ms on Arc.
Split: 80 / 12 / 5 / 3 (creator / platform / referrer / reserve).
Content types: articles, agent skills, photo essays (Skimflow), books.
Built on Circle Gateway + x402 + USDC on Arc; testnet today.

Talk to us

Open an issue/PR on the repo to reach the team. For partnership or affiliate inquiries, include: who your audience is, what you'd integrate or promote, and the rough volume you can point to.

⚠️ Testnet only. All amounts are test USDC with no real-world value. Nothing here is financial advice or an offer of securities.