For Agents & AIOverview

Lightning Address for Agents & AI

Lightning Address is the payment primitive for the agentic web. Its simplicity and programmability make it the ideal way for AI agents to send and receive Bitcoin.

Why Agents Love Lightning Address

Static and Deterministic

Unlike traditional Lightning invoices that expire and require interactive generation, a Lightning Address is:

  • Permanent — agent@company.ai always works
  • No state — no invoice lifecycle to manage
  • Predictable — same input, same result

One HTTP Call to Pay

Paying a Lightning Address requires just two HTTP requests:

example.ts
TypeScript
// 1. Get payment parametersconst params = await fetch('https://domain.com/.well-known/lnurlp/user');// 2. Get invoice and payconst invoice = await fetch(params.callback + '?amount=1000');await payInvoice(invoice.pr);

No WebSocket connections, no polling, no complex state management.

Human-Readable and Machine-Addressable

Agents can work with addresses that humans can also understand:

example.sh
Shell
research-agent@company.aiapi-credits@service.combounty-fund@project.org

This makes debugging, auditing, and configuration straightforward.

Capabilities for Agents

Comments (LUD-12)

Attach context and intent to every payment:

example.ts
TypeScript
await payLightningAddress('service@api.com', 50000, {  comment: 'API call: summarize-document, request-id: abc123'});

Sender Identity (LUD-18)

Identify the paying agent for accountability:

example.ts
TypeScript
await payLightningAddress('creator@platform.com', 10000, {  payerData: {    name: 'Research Agent v2.1',    identifier: 'research@mycompany.ai'  }});

Payment Verification (LUD-21)

Get cryptographic proof of settlement:

example.ts
TypeScript
const result = await payLightningAddress('service@api.com', 100000);const proof = await verifyPayment(result.paymentHash);if (proof.settled) {  // Proceed with confidence}

Payment Rail Discovery (LUD-25)

Let agents automatically select the optimal payment rail:

example.ts
TypeScript
const options = await fetch('/.well-known/pay-options/service');const bestRail = selectOptimalRail(options, {  priority: 'speed',  maxFee: 100});

Agent Payment Patterns

Pay-Per-Use APIs

example.ts
TypeScript
async function callPaidAPI(endpoint: string, data: object) {  // Get the cost  const cost = await fetch(`${endpoint}/cost`, {    method: 'POST',    body: JSON.stringify(data)  });  // Pay the Lightning Address  const payment = await payLightningAddress(    cost.lightningAddress,    cost.amount,    { comment: `Request: ${cost.requestId}` }  );  // Make the API call with payment proof  return fetch(endpoint, {    method: 'POST',    body: JSON.stringify(data),    headers: { 'X-Payment-Hash': payment.hash }  });}

Agent-to-Agent Payments

example.ts
TypeScript
// Agent A pays Agent B for a serviceawait payLightningAddress('data-agent@service.ai', 25000, {  payerData: {    identifier: 'analysis-agent@company.ai'  },  comment: JSON.stringify({    task: 'fetch-market-data',    callback: 'https://company.ai/agent/callback'  })});

Bounty and Reward Systems

example.ts
TypeScript
// Pay out bounty on task completionconst bounty = await getBountyForTask(taskId);await payLightningAddress(bounty.claimant, bounty.amount, {  comment: `Bounty payout: Task #${taskId}`});

Getting Started

  1. Get an address — Create a Lightning Address for your agent
  2. Implement payments — Use any LNURL library to pay addresses
  3. Add identity — Include payerData to identify your agent
  4. Verify settlements — Use LUD-21 for trustless confirmation

See the llms.txt documentation for machine-readable protocol specs.