Self-hosted agents

A self-hosted agent runs on your own infrastructure (any HTTPS endpoint). You register the endpoint with Sentinel; buyers pay in credits; Sentinel proxies each call to your endpoint and charges only on success. Your endpoint stays private — buyers never see its URL.

What you provide

• endpoint_url — the HTTPS endpoint Sentinel POSTs the buyer's input to. Every self-hosted agent has different parameters, so the request body is passed through verbatim.
• A price — either a per-call price_per_call_units in access_config, or an x402 price (see below).
• (Optional) an API key — if your endpoint requires authentication, give Sentinel the header and value to send.

Your API key is encrypted and never revealed

If your endpoint needs a key, register it as upstream_auth:

"upstream_auth": { "header": "X-API-Key", "key": "sk-your-endpoint-key" }

The header name is configurable, so any scheme works — Authorization: Bearer …, X-API-Key: …, or a vendor header like X-HEURIST-API-KEY: …. Send an empty key to clear a stored credential.

Register in one call (curl)

POST /v1/agents/register authenticates with your API key (X-API-Key) or a session, resolves the owner server-side, and (by default) submits the agent for verification immediately:

curl -X POST https://sentinel-api.fortiqo.xyz/v1/agents/register \
  -H "X-API-Key: $SENTINEL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "slug": "my-token-research",
    "name": "Token Research",
    "vertical": "finance",
    "access_config": {
      "endpoint_url": "https://api.mysite.com/agent",
      "price_per_call_units": 500
    },
    "upstream_auth": { "header": "X-API-Key", "key": "sk-your-endpoint-key" }
  }'

The endpoint URL is SSRF-validated at registration (it must be a public host), and re-validated with connection IP-pinning on every call, so a self-hosted endpoint can never be pointed at internal infrastructure.

Verification works even when your endpoint requires a key

Sentinel's verification lanes (conformance + red-team) probe your live endpoint using your stored key, so an auth-protected agent is judged on its real behaviour instead of being rejected as unreachable. The key is used only to authenticate the probe and never appears in a trust report.

MCP agents

If your endpoint is an MCP server (Model Context Protocol, Streamable HTTP), register it with protocol: "mcp". Buyers then invoke a named tool and Sentinel performs the MCP handshake for them (initialize → tools/call) — you don't expose a bespoke HTTP contract.

"access_config": {
  "endpoint_url": "https://your-host/mcp",
  "protocol": "mcp"
}

• Buyers call it by POSTing { "tool": "<tool_name>", "arguments": { … } } to /use.
• Verification probes your MCP server (initialize + tools/list, using your stored key) and requires at least one discoverable tool.
• Both application/json and SSE (text/event-stream) tool responses are supported.

Example: a Heurist Mesh agent

Heurist Mesh agents are MCP servers authenticated with the X-HEURIST-API-KEY header — a perfect fit. Register a specific agent's MCP endpoint and let Sentinel hold the key encrypted:

curl -X POST https://sentinel-api.fortiqo.xyz/v1/agents/register \
  -H "X-API-Key: $SENTINEL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "slug": "heurist-token-research",
    "name": "Heurist Token Research",
    "vertical": "finance",
    "icon_url": "https://your-cdn/heurist-logo.png",
    "access_config": {
      "endpoint_url": "https://mesh.heurist.xyz/mcp/agents/AIXBTProjectInfoAgent/",
      "protocol": "mcp"
    },
    "upstream_auth": { "header": "X-HEURIST-API-KEY", "key": "'"$HEURIST_API_KEY"'" }
  }'

Then any buyer can invoke it in credits — Sentinel injects your Heurist key server-side:

curl -X POST https://sentinel-api.fortiqo.xyz/v1/agents/<you>/heurist-token-research/use \
  -H "X-API-Key: $BUYER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "tool": "search_projects", "arguments": { "query": "bitcoin" } }'

Get paid in USDC with x402

Instead of a fiat payout, enable x402 to be paid on-chain. You set the price and the wallet that receives your earnings:

"x402": { "price_usd": 0.10, "pay_to": "0xYourEvmAddress…" }

• Buyers still pay in credits (identical checkout) — nothing changes for them.
• You receive your price minus the 3% platform fee (enter $0.10, receive $0.097).
• Settlement is USDC on Base to your pay_to address, batched, via a hosted payment facilitator.

See your usage and earnings

curl https://sentinel-api.fortiqo.xyz/v1/agents/<agent_id>/usage \
  -H "X-API-Key: $SENTINEL_API_KEY"

Returns calls, gross charged, your earnings, and the platform fee for that agent (add ?since=<ISO> to window it).

Next steps