Solvent Publishing Guide

A new open-source AI agent called SOLVENT operates as a self-funding business, selling research briefs via Stripe and using its own revenue to pay for compute. It profit-gates every job before starting, declining unprofitable work, and enforces spend policies through a NemoClaw-style sandbox. The agent runs offline-first with stubs or live with API keys, and a demo processes four analyst jobs in about 30 seconds.

An AI agent that runs as a profitable, self-funding business. It sells research briefs. It collects payment on Stripe. It spends its own revenue to provision the compute it needs. And it refuses any job that doesn't clear a margin. Most agents can spend money. Almost none can run as a business. SOLVENT closes the full loop: Client pays Stripe → Agent earns revenue → Agent fulfils the work → Agent pays its own vendor bills → P&L booked → balance sheet grows Every job is profit-gated before it starts . Unprofitable work is declined without touching Stripe. Vendor payments are screened by a NemoClaw-style policy sandbox. The agent literally cannot spend more than it earns. Zero dependencies. No API keys. Works right now. git clone https://github.com/ianalloway/solvent-agent.git cd solvent-agent python3 run demo.py The agent will run a full batch of 4 analyst jobs — complete with margin gating, Stripe payment simulation, NVIDIA Nemotron fulfillment, guardrail screening, and live P&L — in about 30 seconds. First run: A short onboarding wizard asks you to choose a model, interaction mode, and whether to enable Stripe test mode. Preferences are saved to .solvent/config.json and never committed. After a run, open the live treasury dashboard: open treasury dashboard.html macOS A typical batch session: | Metric | Value | |---|---| | Revenue | $223.00 | | Operating spend | $13.35 | Net profit | $209.65 | | Margin | 94% | | Jobs declined | 1 below margin floor | inbound job │ ▼ ┌─────────────┐ margin < floor? ┌───────────┐ │ MARGIN GATE│ ─────────────────▶ │ DECLINE │ │ pricing │ └───────────┘ └─────┬───────┘ accept ▼ ┌─────────────┐ EARN │ STRIPE │ ── Payment Link → poll/webhook until paid ──▶ + revenue └─────┬───────┘ records cs ... + pi ... on ledger ▼ ┌─────────────┐ FULFIL │ NEMOTRON │ ── Llama-3.1-Nemotron-Ultra produces the brief ──▶ resource usage └─────┬───────┘ ▼ ┌─────────────┐ SPEND every payment screened first │ GUARDRAILS │ ── NemoClaw policy: allowlist · caps · reserve · ROI │ → STRIPE │ ── Issuing virtual card test or simulated spend ──▶ − expense └─────┬───────┘ ▼ BOOK P&L ──▶ treasury updated · dashboard refreshed Revenue is always collected before cost is incurred , and no payment can violate policy. The business is safe by construction and profitable by rule. | Layer | Technology | File | |---|---|---| Analyst / reasoning | NVIDIA Nemotron Llama-3.1-Nemotron-Ultra | solvent/nemotron.py | Spend safety | NVIDIA NemoClaw-style policy sandbox | solvent/guardrails.py | Earn | Stripe Payment Links + Checkout Session polling | solvent/stripe client.py | Spend | Stripe Issuing virtual cards test mode | solvent/stripe client.py | Orchestration | Hermes / Nous tool-calling agent loop | solvent/agent.py | Memory | SQLite treasury + pricing ledger | solvent/treasury.py · solvent/pricing.py | Key design choices: Structural profitability — pricing.py computes unit cost before quoting. If margin < floor, the job never reaches Stripe. Spend policy — guardrails.py enforces vendor allowlist, per-transaction cap, rolling 24h budget, minimum cash reserve, and no-negative-ROI rule. Offline-first — without API keys the demo runs on deterministic stubs. Add NVIDIA API KEY + STRIPE API KEY=sk test ... to unlock live inference and real Payment Links. Audit trail — every cs ... checkout session ID and pi ... PaymentIntent ID is recorded on the ledger before fulfilment begins. python3 run demo.py 4 pre-loaded jobs. ~30 seconds. Shows margin gating, Stripe earn/spend, Nemotron fulfillment, and guardrails in action. python3 run demo.py --interactive Type a research topic and client budget at the prompt. The agent quotes, pays, fulfils, and books P&L for each one in real time. Keep going until you quit. python3 run demo.py --seed 500 start with $500 instead of $100 python3 run demo.py --keep-balance resume existing treasury balance In interactive mode, type /fund 200 at the prompt to deposit $200 into the live treasury without restarting. python from solvent.agent import Solvent agent = Solvent seed cents=10 000 reset treasury, seed $100 agent.handle job SAMPLE JOBS 0 process one job snap = agent.run SAMPLE JOBS 1: process a list; returns snapshot print snap "balance cents" , snap "margin pct" python3 demo guardrails.py Shows five spend attempts and which ones the NemoClaw-style policy blocks — without starting the agent or touching Stripe. To use live Nemotron inference and real Stripe test-mode payment links: pip install -r requirements.txt export NVIDIA API KEY=nvapi-... from build.nvidia.com export STRIPE API KEY=sk test ... Stripe test mode only live keys refused python3 run demo.py With both keys set: - Briefs are written by NVIDIA Nemotron Llama-3.1-Nemotron-Ultra . - Each job creates a real Stripe Payment Link . Pay with test card 4242 4242 4242 4242 . - SOLVENT polls the Checkout Session cs ... until payment status == paid before fulfilling — no instant confirm. - Optional: set STRIPE WEBHOOK SECRET and forward checkout.session.completed events via StripeClient.process webhook . - Optional: enable Stripe Issuing on your test account to provision capped single-use virtual debit cards for each vendor payment. | Variable | Purpose | |---|---| NVIDIA API KEY | Live Nemotron inference nvapi-... | STRIPE API KEY | Stripe test key sk test ... | STRIPE WEBHOOK SECRET | Optional webhook verification | STRIPE PAYMENT POLL TIMEOUT | Seconds to wait for payment default 120 | STRIPE PAYMENT POLL INTERVAL | Poll interval in seconds default 2 | SOLVENT FORCE STRIPE SIMULATE | Force offline simulate mode even with a key | Product/Price objects are cached in .solvent/stripe catalog.json so repeated runs reuse a single SOLVENT Research Brief product instead of cluttering your Stripe dashboard. pip install pytest python3 -m pytest tests/ -v Unit tests cover: pricing & margin gate · guardrail policy · treasury ledger · Stripe client simulate + test mode · config/onboarding. solvent/ agent.py the orchestrator earn → fulfil → spend → book treasury.py SQLite ledger / balance sheet pricing.py the margin gate guardrails.py NemoClaw-style spend policy stripe client.py two-sided Stripe layer earn + spend nemotron.py NVIDIA Nemotron client + offline stub service.py the product: an on-demand research brief jobs.py sample inbound work dashboard.py renders the treasury to HTML + JSON config.py onboarding wizard and config persistence run demo.py the full business loop CLI entry point demo guardrails.py the safety story standalone tests/ pytest suite docs/ screenshots and supporting assets Hermes Agent Accelerated Business Hackathon — NVIDIA × Stripe × Nous Research The agent was designed to demonstrate: - An agent that is economically self-aware — it has a treasury, prices against its own costs, and gates every action on projected profit - A complete two-sided Stripe integration — earns via Payment Links, spends via Issuing virtual cards Provable spend safety — a NemoClaw-style policy sandbox that makes "give an agent a payment credential" a reasonable thing to do Live inference with NVIDIA Nemotron — the offline stub means the demo always works, even without API keys Issues, PRs, and ideas are very welcome. Some good starting points: - Add more sample research topics in solvent/jobs.py - Improve the Nemotron prompt template in solvent/service.py - Add a new guardrail policy to solvent/guardrails.py - Extend the dashboard with charts or new metrics in solvent/dashboard.py If SOLVENT gave you ideas, give it a ⭐