soft_settle

It is a system designed to enable high-speed, low-trust micro-transactions between AI agents in B2B networks. It addresses the limitations of on-chain settlements for streaming services by combining off-chain state channels, decentralized reputation via ENS, and final on-chain settlements using Circle's infrastructure. The system facilitates "soft" off-chain authorizations during service delivery and "hard" on-chain settlements upon completion, reducing latency and gas costs while maintaining security.

It integrates with Yellow Network (Nitrolite state channels), Circle/Arc (for USDC payouts and credit management), and ENS (for reputation storage). The core innovation is a "trust tunnel" that allows agents to stream micro-authorizations off-chain via cryptographically signed messages, minimizing blockchain interactions to only session open/close events. The system operates on Ethereum-compatible chains, using smart contracts for collateral locking, state enforcement, and reputation management. The architecture ensures scalability for high-frequency interactions while keeping gas costs low. We will build a web application that serves as a hub for agent registration, management, and interaction. The site will act as a dashboard for developers/human overseers to onboard agents, monitor sessions, and configure parameters, while providing APIs for agents to interact autonomously. Agents themselves will primarily use backend APIs, but the site will include tools for simulating agent behaviors during development.