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🪙 SOLVENT

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.

Demo by default. pip install solvent-agent and solvent run an offline, zero-key simulation of that loop. Dollar figures in the demo are illustrative — not production revenue. Stripe test-mode Payment Links and live NVIDIA Nemotron are opt-in; see Make It Real.

CI PyPI Python 3.10+ License: MIT Hackathon Stars

Quick Start · How It Works · Live Demo · Make It Real


The Big Idea

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.


🚀 Quick Start

Zero dependencies. No API keys. Works right now.

Install from PyPI:

pip install solvent-agent
# or, for an isolated CLI install:
pipx install solvent-agent

solvent                          # run the demo
solvent finance                  # financial report (income, runway, forecast)
solvent doctor                   # stack diagnostics (keys, extras, workspace)
solvent --help                   # list all commands
solvent --version
Command What it does
solvent batch demo (onboarding wizard on first run)
solvent init create data dirs, treasury DB, and workspace files
solvent status live treasury summary (--watch to auto-refresh)
solvent finance income statement, unit economics, runway, forecast
solvent doctor diagnostics: API keys, extras, workspace files
solvent serve webhooks + job API + hosted dashboard ([serve] extra)
solvent worker resume incomplete jobs / process the queue
solvent jobs list / show / retry / cancel jobs (jobs --help)

Or clone and run from source:

git clone https://github.com/ianalloway/solvent-agent.git
cd solvent-agent
python3 run_demo.py              # batch demo (onboarding wizard on first run)
python3 run_demo.py --no-onboard # skip wizard when scripting
pip install -e .                 # editable install from a checkout

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.

Third-party features are opt-in extras — install only what you need:

pip install "solvent-agent[stripe]"    # real Stripe test-mode payment links
pip install "solvent-agent[serve]"     # FastAPI webhooks + hosted briefs
pip install "solvent-agent[telegram]"  # Telegram bot channel
pip install "solvent-agent[qr]"        # scannable QR codes for OpenClaw pairing
pip install "solvent-agent[dev]"       # pytest, for running the test suite
pip install "solvent-agent[all]"       # everything

When run from a source checkout, runtime data stays under <repo>/data. When installed elsewhere, SOLVENT writes to ~/.solvent instead of into site-packages — override either with SOLVENT_HOME=/path/to/dir.

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.


📊 The Demo

After a run, the CLI prints the dashboard path. Open it in a browser:

open treasury_dashboard.html          # macOS (source checkout)
xdg-open treasury_dashboard.html      # Linux
# pip/pipx install: ~/.solvent/treasury_dashboard.html  (or $SOLVENT_HOME)

SOLVENT Treasury Dashboard — live P&L, job cards, resource allocation, transaction log

A typical offline demo batch (illustrative numbers from the simulated run — not production revenue):

Metric Demo value
Revenue ~$223
Operating spend ~$13
Net profit high-margin demo loop
Jobs declined 1 (below margin floor)

⚙️ How It Works

 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.


🏗️ Architecture

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.

🎮 Running Modes

Batch demo (default — best for judges)

python3 run_demo.py

4 pre-loaded jobs. ~30 seconds. Shows margin gating, Stripe earn/spend, Nemotron fulfillment, and guardrails in action.

Interactive — your own jobs

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.

Add funds mid-session

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.

Programmatic

from solvent.agent import Solvent
from solvent.jobs import SAMPLE_JOBS

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"])

Production mode (webhooks + async worker)

pip install "solvent-agent[serve]"
export SOLVENT_DASHBOARD_TOKEN=$(python3 -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(32))')

python3 -m solvent serve --port 8787   # webhooks + job API + hosted briefs
python3 -m solvent worker              # resume incomplete jobs, process queue

# Interactive voice dashboard (chat + live SSE updates):
open "http://127.0.0.1:8787/?token=$SOLVENT_DASHBOARD_TOKEN"

The hosted dashboard at / includes a chat panel (type or use the mic with Web Speech API) and live treasury updates via Server-Sent Events (/api/events). Dashboard/control routes require SOLVENT_DASHBOARD_TOKEN via ?token=... or the X-Solvent-Dashboard-Token header before they expose status data or route chat through the Nemotron agent loop.

See docs/PRODUCTION.md for Stripe webhook setup, SMTP delivery, and reconciliation.

Operations

python3 -m solvent quote "AI inference chips, 2026" --budget 49   # dry-run the margin gate
python3 -m solvent backlog                # rank open jobs by return on capital
python3 -m solvent guardrails             # spend policy in force + vendor exposure
python3 -m solvent customers              # lifetime value, repeat rate, margin by customer
python3 -m solvent costs                  # estimated vs realized COGS + calibration
python3 -m solvent simulate               # run the policy over synthetic demand
python3 -m solvent optimize               # search margin floor x min order for the best policy
python3 -m solvent checkouts              # unpaid links: age, reminders, expiry
python3 -m solvent intake                 # the screen inbound jobs pass before pricing
python3 -m solvent reconcile --since 7d   # Stripe ↔ ledger drift check
python3 -m solvent finance                # income statement, unit economics, runway
python3 -m solvent finance --json         # machine-readable report
python3 -m solvent finance --reserve 50   # runway to a $50 cash-reserve floor
python3 -m solvent finance --period week  # net P&L trend by day | week | month
python3 -m solvent finance --horizon 60   # forecast the balance 60 days out

finance (alias report) turns the treasury ledger into the numbers a business steers by: revenue/cost/net-margin, average profit per job, a cash runway — days of burn remaining, or cash-flow positive once the agent funds itself — a net-P&L trend bucketed by day/week/month, and a balance forecast (central projection with a best/worst band whose width grows with daily volatility). The income statement, runway, trend, and forecast also render as a Financial Statement panel in the HTML dashboard.


🧭 Commercial Judgement

Three things turn the money loop into something that behaves like a shop rather than a script.

Counter-offers — a decline is a negotiating position

The margin gate still refuses work it cannot do profitably, but it no longer just says no. Every decline carries the deal the agent would accept:

python3 -m solvent quote "Edge-AI in industrial robotics" --budget 8 --tokens 30000
  Projected margin     $-7.93 (-99.1%)   floor 35.0%
  Verdict              DECLINE — order $8 below minimum order size $15

  Counter-offer        $25.00 at 36.3% margin
    can deliver this brief as specified for $25.00

Two shapes, in order of preference: a narrower scope the customer's existing budget can buy (fewer market-data pulls first — they are the priciest resource), or, when no sellable scope fits, the lowest price that clears the margin floor. The offer is emitted as a counter_offer event next to the decline, so any channel — terminal, Telegram, the job API — can quote it back. solvent quote runs the whole gate as a dry run: nothing is written to the treasury, no Stripe call is made, and the exit code is 1 on a decline so scripts can gate on the verdict.

Spend policy — bounding how money moves, not just how much

The guardrails gained two rules that shape the distribution of spend:

Rule What it stops
Per-vendor 24h cap one vendor — compromised, mispriced, or just buggy — absorbing the whole day's budget
Spend velocity a fulfilment loop that starts paying in a tight cycle, long before it drains the treasury

Limits are operator-tunable without touching code, via .solvent/spend_policy.json (a malformed file is ignored rather than allowed to widen the policy):

{
  "daily_budget_cents": 50000,
  "per_vendor_daily_cents": 8000,
  "max_txns_per_hour": 40,
  "vendor_daily_overrides": { "market-data-api": 15000 }
}

python3 -m solvent guardrails prints the policy in force, how much of each rolling window is used, per-vendor exposure against its cap, and every spend the policy blocked.

Backlog — which job to work on next

A queue is not a plan. When several jobs are open and both cash and the 24h spend budget are finite, the order the agent works in decides what it earns. python3 -m solvent backlog ranks the open work the way a business would — and the async worker consumes the same ranking:

  1. Finish what is already paid for. Revenue is collected before cost is incurred, so a paid job left unfinished is a refund waiting to happen.
  2. Then best return on capital — margin per cent of fulfilment cost, so a $20 job costing $5 outranks a $90 job costing $60.
  3. Never start work the treasury cannot fund. A job whose fulfilment would breach the spend budget or the cash reserve is deferred until the treasury can pay for it — where the quote stage would otherwise decline it permanently — and a cheaper job behind it can still take the remaining capacity.
  #  JOB         STATUS                    PRICE     COST    ROI  TOPIC
  1  J4          awaiting_payment         $99.00    $8.07  11.27   Edge-AI adoption in industri
  2  J5          awaiting_payment        $125.00   $10.41  11.01   Unit economics of autonomous
    ⏸ J2: fulfilment needs 845c; only 200c of spend capacity left (24h budget / cash reserve)

Knowing the business

Three more views the agent keeps on itself.

solvent customers — who actually pays. Every job carries an email and every ledger entry carries a job id, so the two join into lifetime value per customer: revenue, COGS, net, repeat rate, and the share of revenue riding on the single best customer (the concentration risk). --email <addr> drills into one customer's job history.

  CUSTOMER                           JOBS    REVENUE        NET  MARGIN  LAST
   analyst@logistics.example            1    $125.00    $124.45   99.6%  just now
  ↻analyst@fund.example                 2     $98.00     $96.90   98.9%  just now

  Customers 5  ·  repeat 1 (20.0%)  ·  revenue per customer $79.40
  Top customer is 31.5% of revenue

solvent costs — a margin gate that learns. The stage machine already recorded what each job really cost; now that feeds back into the next quote. When realized COGS run hotter than the static model, quotes are marked up by the observed ratio (clamped, and only after five fulfilled jobs) so the margin floor keeps meaning what it says. When they run cooler, nothing happens automatically — an optimistic sample is not a reason to quote closer to the bone, and cutting prices stays an operator decision.

solvent simulate — try the policy before it touches money. Margin floor, transaction cap, daily budget, cash reserve: every one is a number somebody picks, and picking them on a live treasury means finding out the expensive way. This runs the same pricing and guardrails kernel over synthetic demand, many times, and reports the distribution — acceptance rate, net per day, ending balance percentiles, how often the business ends below its reserve, and which rule did the blocking. One trial is one day of trading, so the rolling 24h budget and the velocity rule bind the way they would in a real day.

python3 -m solvent simulate                            # the policy as it stands
python3 -m solvent simulate --cost-multiplier 6        # what if vendors got 6× pricier
python3 -m solvent simulate --margin-floor 55 --json   # tune the floor, machine-readable

Nothing in a simulation touches the treasury, Stripe, or Nemotron, and the same --seed always reproduces the same run.

Running the shop

solvent checkouts — abandoned carts are normal; leaving them open is not. A job that reached awaiting_payment used to sit there forever: polled on every worker pass, counted as pipeline, and never chased. Unpaid links now have a lifecycle — the customer is reminded after reminder_after_hours (at most max_reminders times, spaced), and the link expires after expire_after_hours, closing the Stripe session and dropping the job out of the queue. Expiry never moves money: an unpaid job has no revenue to refund. The worker sweeps on every pass; --sweep runs it by hand. Tune it in .solvent/checkout_policy.json.

solvent intake — the screen before the margin gate. security.py refuses hostile content; this refuses bad commerce, and it runs before pricing so a screened-out job costs nothing:

Rule What it catches
duplicate the same customer asking for the same brief inside an hour — a double-click, not two commissions
customer_burst one customer flooding the queue
oversized_order an order above the automatic ceiling, where a human should look first
unreachable_customer a missing or malformed email, or a blocked domain

Blocks are recorded on the job with an intake: reason, so they are greppable in solvent jobs and the event log. Thresholds live in .solvent/intake_policy.json.

solvent optimize — which policy should I actually run? simulate answers "what would this do"; this searches the space. It sweeps margin floor × minimum order over identical synthetic demand (common random numbers, so cells differ by policy and nothing else) and picks the best-paying cell inside a stated risk budget — by default, ending a day below the cash reserve at most 5% of the time. The constraint is the whole point: without it, "best" always picks the reckless cell.

    FLOOR  MIN ORDER   ACCEPT     NET/DAY    p10 BAL  BELOW RES
    35.0%     $10.00    17.7%      $-3.04    $-34.29      28.0%
    45.0%     $10.00    24.0%      $35.84     $32.26       0.0% ←

  → Run a 45.0% margin floor with a $10.00 minimum order: $35.84 net per day.
    vs the policy in force (35.0% / $15.00): $12.35 more per day.

(that run is --cost-multiplier 8: the same search under a vendor price shock)


🔑 Make It Real

To use live Nemotron inference and real Stripe test-mode payment links:

pip install "solvent-agent[stripe]"

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.

Environment variables

Variable Purpose
SOLVENT_HOME Where runtime data (treasury DB, reports, dashboard, logs) is stored. Defaults to the repo when run from a checkout, else ~/.solvent
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
SOLVENT_DASHBOARD_TOKEN Shared secret required for hosted dashboard/control routes
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN Telegram bot token from BotFather
SOLVENT_TELEGRAM_DM_POLICY pairing · allowlist · open (default pairing)
SOLVENT_TELEGRAM_ALLOW_FROM Comma-separated Telegram user IDs for allowlist mode
SOLVENT_PORT Port for the serve API server (default 8787)
SOLVENT_BASE_URL Base URL for hosted brief links and Stripe webhook callbacks
NEMOTRON_MODEL Nemotron model override (default: nvidia/llama-3.1-nemotron-ultra-253b-v1)
SOLVENT_DELIVERY_SECRET HMAC token secret for /briefs/{job_id}; at least 32 characters, high entropy
SOLVENT_SKIP_ONBOARD Set to 1 to skip the first-run wizard
SOLVENT_ALLOW_POLL When set to 1/true/yes, actively poll Stripe Checkout Sessions for payment status instead of awaiting webhook confirmation (default: off)
SOLVENT_ASYNC Run job fulfillment asynchronously instead of blocking on payment polling (default: off / synchronous)
SOLVENT_LIVE_SEARCH Enable live web search integration in the agent chat loop (default: off)
SOLVENT_LOG_JSON Emit structured JSON log lines to stderr in addition to the log file (default: off)
SOLVENT_UPDATE_CHECK Opt-in: run a background version-update hint on CLI startup when set to 1/true/yes
SOLVENT_NO_UPDATE_CHECK Set to any value to suppress the background version-update hint
SOLVENT_WORKSPACE Override path for the agent workspace directory (SOUL/BRAIN/AGENTS files)
SOLVENT_WORKSPACE_MAX_CHARS Max characters loaded per workspace context file (default 8000)
SOLVENT_WORKSPACE_TOTAL_MAX_CHARS Max total characters across all workspace context files (default 40000)
SMTP_HOST SMTP server hostname. When empty (default), brief delivery is simulated — research briefs are written to the outbox directory instead of emailed. When set, briefs are emailed to the customer
SMTP_PORT SMTP server port (default 587)
SMTP_USER SMTP authentication username
SMTP_PASS SMTP authentication password
SMTP_FROM "From" address for outgoing brief emails (default: SMTP_USER, else agent@solvent.local)

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.


💬 Telegram (conversational channel)

Full chat on Telegram with OpenClaw-style pairing and Hermes-style tool/memory patterns. See docs/TELEGRAM.md.

pip install "solvent-agent[telegram]"
export TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=...

python -m solvent serve &    # Stripe webhooks + checkout
python -m solvent worker &   # fulfill jobs
python -m solvent telegram     # long-poll bot

python -m solvent doctor       # diagnostics
python -m solvent pairing list # pending DM codes

Users pair via /start, commission briefs in natural language, receive checkout links, and get push updates when jobs are paid and delivered.

Personality and operating rules come from the agent workspace (SOUL.md, BRAIN.md, AGENTS.md) — see docs/WORKSPACE.md.


🧪 Tests

pip install "solvent-agent[dev]"
python3 -m pytest tests/ -v
ruff check solvent tests run_demo.py

Unit tests cover: pricing & margin gate · guardrail policy · treasury ledger · Stripe client (simulate + test mode) · config/onboarding.


📁 Repository Layout

solvent/
  __main__.py      `python -m solvent` / `solvent` command dispatcher
  cli.py           demo / interactive CLI (`solvent` with no subcommand)
  agent.py         the orchestrator (earn → fulfil → spend → book)
  stages.py        idempotent stage machine (quote→paid→fulfill→deliver→spend)
  treasury.py      SQLite ledger / balance sheet
  pricing.py       the margin gate (+ counter-offers on a decline)
  quote_cmd.py     `solvent quote` — dry-run the margin gate
  guardrails.py    NemoClaw-style spend policy (caps · vendor budgets · velocity)
  guardrail_cmd.py `solvent guardrails` — policy in force + vendor exposure
  backlog.py       capital-aware job prioritisation (`solvent backlog`)
  calibration.py   realized COGS → cost-model calibration (`solvent costs`)
  customers.py     lifetime value and repeat rate (`solvent customers`)
  simulate.py      policy simulator over synthetic demand (`solvent simulate`)
  optimize.py      policy search under a risk budget (`solvent optimize`)
  checkout.py      payment reminders and link expiry (`solvent checkouts`)
  intake.py        commercial screen on inbound jobs (`solvent intake`)
  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
  finance.py       income statement · unit economics · runway · forecast
  config.py        onboarding wizard and config persistence
  server.py        FastAPI webhooks + job API + hosted briefs (serve)
  worker.py        async job processor + resume incomplete jobs
  gateway.py       channel router (Telegram → chat sessions)
  chat.py          conversational loop + business tools
  memory.py        Hermes-style session memory
  doctor.py        stack diagnostics
  workspace.py     SOUL/BRAIN/AGENTS prompt assembly
  channels/        Telegram long-poll adapter
run_demo.py        the full business loop (CLI entry point)
tests/             pytest suite
docs/              screenshots and supporting docs

🏆 Built For

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

🤝 Contributing

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 ⭐

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Offline-first demo of a self-funding analyst agent: earns via Stripe, fulfils with NVIDIA Nemotron, pays vendor bills within guardrails, never works at a loss.

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