LLM inference via USDC on Base · REST API compatible · No accounts required
Autonomous AI token gateway. Agents deposit USDC, receive an API key, and make inference requests across owned and premium third-party models. Per-request billing via x402 on Base L2. Intelligent routing. Portable certification. Zero human steps.
PATTERN 1 — AUTONOMOUS ONBOARDING
No accounts. No signup forms. An agent sends a request, pays USDC, and receives its API key and first inference result in a single response.
01
Send Request
Agent sends a REST API inference request to the gateway. No API key. No headers. Just the request.
›02
Receive 402
Gateway responds with HTTP 402 containing USDC amount, treasury wallet address, and payment context on Base L2.
›03
Pay USDC
Agent sends USDC on Base to the treasury wallet. Transaction confirms in ~2 seconds. Minimum deposit: $25 USDC.
›04
Key + Inference
Agent resends with payment proof. Gateway returns the API key in the response header and the inference result in the body. Done.
TWO-PATH BILLING
Owned models at fixed USDC rates. Premium third-party models at common rate.
OWNED MODEL
pch-fast
$0.44
USDC per million tokens
Best for high-volume, low-complexity tasks like classification, summarization, routing decisions, and quick agent responses where speed and cost matter most.
OWNED MODEL
pch-pro
$1.96
USDC per million tokens
Best for general-purpose autonomous agent reasoning, multi-step planning, tool use, and production workloads that require strong instruction following and reliable output quality.
OWNED MODEL
pch-coder
$3.50
USDC per million tokens
Agentic coding tasks, repository-scale code generation, function calling, browser automation, debugging.
Premium third-party models (claude-haiku, claude-sonnet) available at common rate for Silver and Gold tiers.
PCH model tiers are powered by third-party inference infrastructure. The underlying model configuration is proprietary to PathCourse Health and subject to change without notice.
AGENT CERTIFICATION
Higher tiers unlock premium third-party models and tighter SLA guarantees. Certification checks are automated — 10 checks, under 5 seconds, verified on-chain.
UNCERTIFIED
$25
USDC DEPOSIT
$25.00 opening balance
BRONZE
$75
USDC DEPOSIT
$59.00 opening balance
+ pch-pro unlocked
SILVER
$250
USDC DEPOSIT
$232.00 opening balance
+ claude-haiku unlocked
GOLD
$750
USDC DEPOSIT
$728.00 opening balance
+ claude-sonnet unlocked
SETTLEMENT RAIL
x402 is an open payment standard built on HTTP. It uses the HTTP 402 status code to embed payments directly into the request/response cycle. No API keys, no accounts, no billing system required for the first interaction.
PCH implements x402 on Base L2 with USDC settlement. Agents pre-fund a balance by depositing USDC to the treasury wallet. Per-request billing deducts from that balance in real time. When balance runs low, the gateway returns 402 with top-up instructions.
The x402 Foundation includes Cloudflare, Google, and Visa as members. This is a stable, production-ready protocol designed for autonomous agent commerce.
SETTLEMENT
USDC on Base L2 (chain_id 8453). ~2 second confirmation. Sub-cent gas fees.
ROUTING
Deterministic classifier routes each request to the optimal model within tier permissions. Sub-10ms routing decision.
OVERRIDE
PCH-Route-Override: exact header forces specific model dispatch within tier permissions. For benchmarking and consistency.
TRANSPARENCY
Every response includes X-PCH-Routed-Model, X-PCH-Tier, and X-PCH-Balance-Remaining headers.
DEVELOPER
REST API compatible. Drop-in replacement. One curl command.
# Make an inference request to pch-fast curl -X POST https://gateway.pathcoursehealth.com/v1/chat/completions \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"model":"pch-fast","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hello"}],"max_tokens":100}' # Response includes balance and routing info: # X-PCH-Routed-Model: pch-fast # X-PCH-Tier: bronze # X-PCH-Balance-Remaining: 58.560000
Don't have an API key? Send $25 USDC on Base to the gateway and receive one automatically. Get started →
CONNECT
Gateway API
gateway.pathcoursehealth.com
Agent Card
gateway.pathcoursehealth.com /.well-known/agent.json
Developer Docs
gateway.pathcoursehealth.com /docs
Legal Terms
gateway.pathcoursehealth.com /legal/terms.json
A2A Handshake
agents.pathcoursehealth.com /negotiator/handshake
Capabilities
agents.pathcoursehealth.com /registry/capabilities
GitHub
github.com/pathcourse-health /pch-integration-examples