Free / BYOK / x402

Three human rails plus the agent x402 report SKU — how they differ.

Free / BYOK / x402

Xintel has overlapping payment ideas. Keep them straight:

Humans

Mode	Meaning
Free	Deployment shared credentials (when Free is enabled) + short-lived app token for owner-key routes
BYOK	User’s own Venice key (and optional X app credentials) — bills their account
Credits (x402)	Prepaid USDC wallet via SIWE; debited for charged in-app actions

VITE_X402_DISABLE_FREE / FREE_TIER_DISABLED can turn Free off for humans; BYOK and Credits remain.

Agents

Mode	Meaning
Free menus	Shelf + report metadata — always free for the agent SKU
x402 reports	Pay-as-you-go USDC for select=all / select=range bodies

Agents do not use the human Credits session for this SKU. Each paid reports call carries its own payment header.

Mental model

Humans:  Free ──or── BYOK ──or── Credits session
Agents:  free list/menu ──then── per-call x402 on bodies

OAuth is orthogonal — see OAuth is additive.