@powforge/mcp-l402-gate

Identity-scored Lightning paywall for MCP server operators.

L402 alone proves the caller paid 10 sats. It does not prove the caller has a reputation, has been around for more than 10 minutes, or that pricing one tool call shifts their economics at all. A fresh wallet pays the same 10 sats as a real user.

This package adds a Depth-of-Identity check on top of the L402 invoice. Drop it in front of an MCP tool and a caller has to (a) settle a Lightning invoice and (b) carry a DoI score above your threshold before the tool body runs. Cheap sybils still pay the toll, but the toll plus the per-pubkey reputation requirement is harder to grind than either piece on its own.

See it in action

A clone-and-run example server lives at github.com/zekebuilds-lab/mcp-l402-gate-example. It exposes one tool, bitcoin_data, that fetches the BTC/USD price plus mempool fees from mempool.space, gated by L402 + DoI. Clone it, fill in your LNBits creds, npm start, and you have a Lightning-gated MCP server running locally.

The Gap

Sats4AI's own documentation states the limitation plainly:

"autonomous agents cannot build reputation or receive preferential treatment across sessions."

@powforge/mcp-l402-gate closes that gap by composing L402 payment gating with the DoI oracle's composite identity score. A paying caller is also a known caller, with a per-pubkey reputation that survives across sessions and that costs irreversible work to fake.

Why not just L402

L402 is great wire format, weak abuse control. Recent MCP billing tools (sats4ai-mcp, invinoveritas, l402-kit, 402-mcp, coinopai-mcp) all ship the same 402 -> macaroon -> paid -> tool body flow, and an attacker can replay the flow from a fresh node every minute. coinopai-mcp's own author put it: "x402 is payment transport only. It doesn't handle agent identity, rate negotiation, multi-agent splits, or reputation."

PowForge has been shipping the missing piece. The DoI oracle at https://identity.powforge.dev returns a Schnorr-signed score for any Nostr pubkey, computed from observable irreversible work across four dimensions (social, access, vouch, economic). This package wires that score into the L402 path so a paying caller is also a costly-to-fake caller.

Requirements

• Node >= 18
• An LNBits wallet (URL + invoice/read API key) for the Lightning side
• An accessible PowForge oracle URL (default: https://identity.powforge.dev)

5-line integration (Express)

const express = require('express');
const { mcpL402Middleware } = require('@powforge/mcp-l402-gate');

const app = express();
app.use('/tools/expensive', mcpL402Middleware({
  secret: process.env.GATE_HMAC_SECRET,
  lnbitsUrl: process.env.LNBITS_URL,
  lnbitsApiKey: process.env.LNBITS_INVOICE_KEY,
  satsAmount: 10,
  minScore: 10, // composite >= 10 means "emerging" tier on the oracle
}));

app.post('/tools/expensive', (req, res) => {
  // Reached only when L402 paid AND req.doiScore >= 10
  res.json({ ok: true, doiScore: req.doiScore, l402: req.l402Token });
});

The caller passes their pubkey via the X-Caller-Pubkey header or ?pubkey= query string. v0.1.0 treats this as caller-asserted; v0.2.0 will bind it cryptographically via NIP-98.

MCP tool wrapping

const { mcpL402Tool } = require('@powforge/mcp-l402-gate');

const expensiveTool = mcpL402Tool({
  secret: process.env.GATE_HMAC_SECRET,
  lnbitsUrl: process.env.LNBITS_URL,
  lnbitsApiKey: process.env.LNBITS_INVOICE_KEY,
  satsAmount: 10,
  minScore: 10,
}, {
  name: 'image_render',
  description: 'Render an image. 10 sats. Requires DoI score >= 10.',
  inputSchema: {
    type: 'object',
    properties: {
      prompt: { type: 'string' },
      pubkey: { type: 'string' },
      auth: { type: 'object', properties: { macaroon: { type: 'string' }, preimage: { type: 'string' } } },
    },
    required: ['prompt', 'pubkey'],
  },
}, async (args, ctx) => {
  // Runs only when paid AND ctx.doiScore >= 10
  return { image_url: `https://example/r/${args.prompt}`, billed_to: ctx.doiScore };
});

// Register expensiveTool with your MCP server. On first call without args.auth,
// the tool returns { paid: false, challenge: { macaroon, invoice, ... } }.
// The MCP client pays the invoice, then re-calls with args.auth set.

Config reference

Field	Default	Notes
secret	required	HMAC key for macaroon signing. Rotate periodically.
lnbitsUrl	required	LNBits base URL.
lnbitsApiKey	required	LNBits invoice/read key. NEVER pass admin key.
satsAmount	10	Invoice amount per call.
minScore	10	Reject paid callers below this composite score.
failClosed	true	If oracle errors, reject the call. Set false to fall through with req.doiScoreError.
oracleUrl	https://identity.powforge.dev	Override for self-hosted oracles.
scope	mcp-l402-gate:call	L402 macaroon scope.
ttlSeconds	600	Macaroon validity.
scoreField	composite	Which envelope field to compare to minScore.
callerPubkeyHeader	x-caller-pubkey	HTTP header carrying the caller's asserted pubkey.
oracleAuth	optional	{macaroon, preimage} if your oracle is itself L402-paywalled.
createInvoiceFn	optional	Test seam. Async (memo) => {payment_hash, bolt11}.
checkPaidFn	optional	Test seam. Async (payment_hash) => boolean.
lookupScoreFn	optional	Test seam. Async (pubkey) => {composite, rank, depth}.

Score thresholds (composite)

Same buckets the oracle reports as rank:

Threshold	Rank	Use it when
0	unknown	You only want pay-to-call. Skip this package and use L402 directly.
10	emerging	First-call abuse hurts. Default for most public MCP tools.
40	active	The tool burns real GPU or has expensive side effects.
100	established	Compliance-sensitive or single-tenant SaaS-style endpoints.
200	trusted	High-trust admin tooling.

Failure modes

Status	Body	Meaning
402	{error: "payment required", macaroon, invoice, payment_hash}	First call. Pay the invoice, retry with Authorization: L402 <macaroon>:<preimage>.
401	{error: "invalid macaroon", reason}	Macaroon malformed, expired, wrong scope, or wrong signature.
401	{error: "preimage does not match payment hash"}	Preimage failed sha256 check against the macaroon's payment hash.
409	{error: "macaroon already redeemed"}	Replay guard fired. Mint a fresh macaroon.
400	{error: "caller_pubkey_required"}	No X-Caller-Pubkey header or ?pubkey= query.
403	{error: "score_too_low", score, min, rank}	Caller paid but DoI score is below threshold.
503	{error: "oracle_unavailable", mode: "fail_closed"}	Oracle error and failClosed is on (the default).
502	{error: "invoice provider unavailable"}	LNBits unreachable on first-call mint.

Why this is a separate package

The L402 macaroon mint and verify code, the LNBits client, and the oracle client are all already shipping inside other PowForge packages. The point of @powforge/mcp-l402-gate is to make the composition trivial: one factory, one config object, one middleware OR one tool wrapper. Operators do not have to assemble three packages by hand to get a defended endpoint.

Tests

npm test

16 unit tests, no real network. The macaroon HMAC is real; LNBits and oracle are stubbed.

License

MIT.

Links

• PowForge oracle (live): https://identity.powforge.dev
• Identity SDK: @powforge/identity on npm
• MCP identity tools: @powforge/mcp-identity on npm