PANews reported on February 15th that Lightning Labs has officially released an open-source toolkit that allows AI agents to autonomously send and receive Bitcoin payments via the Bitcoin Lightning Network without human approval, accounts, login credentials, or API keys.

This toolkit uses the L402 protocol and is built on the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" standard. Websites can send Lightning Network invoices to AI agents; after payment, the agent receives a digital payment credential as an access key to unlock services or data. The toolkit also includes the "lnget" tool, which automatically processes paid content access requests in the background. Furthermore, the toolkit supports AI running Lightning nodes, managing permissions, hosting paid services, and completing transactions between agents, while also providing built-in spending limits and remote signature protection.