Open Ecosystem
The Open Ecosystem is one of the three tiers in the catalog, next to Premium and Standard. It holds paid APIs that accept x402 payments in USDC on Base and have no verification. Many are listed in the public x402 Bazaar. PowaAgent can pay them for your agent, with the same source policy checks as Premium and Standard calls.
Finding and paying Open Ecosystem APIs
With the PowaAgent connector, your agent has three tools for this:
| Tool | What it does | Costs money? |
|---|---|---|
search_bazaar | Searches the public x402 Bazaar for paid APIs that match a description | No |
probe_x402 | Asks an API what it charges and what request it expects | No |
pay_x402 | Calls the API and pays the price it asks for | Yes. Real USDC on Base mainnet. |
A typical flow is to search, check the price with probe_x402, then pay with pay_x402.
The PowaAgent Skill also searches the Bazaar when no Premium or Standard listing matches your request, and asks you to confirm the price before paying.
What's different from Premium and Standard calls
| Premium and Standard | Open Ecosystem | |
|---|---|---|
| How your agent finds it | One connector tool per listing | search_bazaar |
| How your agent pays | That listing's connector tool | pay_x402 |
| Checked by PowaHub | Premium: yes. Standard: no. | No |
source block in the response | Premium only | Never |
provenance.service_id | Set | null |
The response is whatever the seller returns. PowaAgent passes it on unchanged.
Your controls
- Turn it on or off with the Open Ecosystem switch on your Source policy page. It's on for new accounts.
- Allow or block specific sellers with your allow and deny lists. Entries match the seller's host and path. The query string is ignored.
- Require approval: with your allow list on, the first call to a new Open Ecosystem seller is held under Pending approvals until you allow it.
- Spend caps apply to every payment.
Which APIs PowaAgent can pay
PowaAgent pays in USDC on Base mainnet only, using the x402 exact payment scheme. Many APIs offer a choice of networks and assets, and PowaAgent picks the USDC-on-Base option. If an API doesn't offer one, PowaAgent can't pay it.
Be careful with unknown sellers
Open Ecosystem sellers aren't reviewed by PowaHub. Check the price with probe_x402 before paying, and use your allow list if you want to approve each new seller yourself.