Boltwork MCP Server

mcp-name: io.github.Squidboy30/boltwork-mcp

boltwork-mcp

MCP server for Boltwork — AI services that pay for themselves via Bitcoin Lightning.

Give your AI agent PDF summarisation, code review, translation, web extraction, document comparison, and persistent memory — all paid autonomously in sats. No API keys. No subscriptions. No accounts.

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What this is

Boltwork is a pay-per-call AI services API that uses the L402 protocol — your agent makes a request, receives a Lightning invoice, pays it automatically, and gets the result back. No human involved.

This package wraps Boltwork as an MCP server so any MCP-compatible AI (Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.) can use it as a tool — with payments handled transparently in the background.

Install

pip install boltwork-mcp

# If using NWC (Nostr Wallet Connect):
pip install "boltwork-mcp[nwc]"

Or use directly with uvx — no install needed:

uvx boltwork-mcp

Setup

1. Get a Lightning wallet

You need a Lightning wallet that supports either:

Option A — NWC (recommended, easiest)

• Alby — browser extension, free, gives you an NWC connection string
• Mutiny Wallet — self-custodial mobile wallet

Option B — Phoenixd

• Phoenixd — self-hosted Lightning node, simple REST API

2. Add to your MCP config

Claude Desktop — edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "boltwork": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["boltwork-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "NWC_CONNECTION_STRING": "nostr+walletconnect://your-connection-string-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor — edit .cursor/mcp.json in your project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "boltwork": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["boltwork-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "NWC_CONNECTION_STRING": "nostr+walletconnect://your-connection-string-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Using Phoenixd instead of NWC:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "boltwork": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["boltwork-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PHOENIXD_URL": "http://localhost:9740",
        "PHOENIXD_PASSWORD": "your-phoenixd-password"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Restart your AI and start using tools

That's it. Your agent now has access to all Boltwork tools and will pay invoices automatically when it uses them.

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Available tools

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Example prompts

Once configured, just talk to your AI naturally:

"Summarise this research paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.00000"

"Review the code at https://github.com/me/repo/blob/main/app.py"

"Translate this contract to Spanish: https://example.com/contract.pdf"

"Compare these two versions of our terms of service:
  v1: https://example.com/tos-v1.pdf
  v2: https://example.com/tos-v2.pdf"

"Remember that the last file I asked you to review was app.py 
 and the score was 7/10"

Your agent handles the payment automatically — you just see the result.

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Workflow pipelines

Chain multiple services in one call with run_workflow:

"Fetch the Bitcoin whitepaper, translate the summary to French,
 and store the translation in my agent memory"

The $from syntax passes outputs between steps:

{
  "steps": [
    {"service": "pdf",       "input": {"url": "https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf"}},
    {"service": "translate", "input": {"text": {"$from": 0}, "target_language": "french"}}
  ]
}

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Environment variables

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Pricing

All prices are in satoshis (sats). At current rates, 1000 sats ≈ $0.60 — but this varies with Bitcoin's price.

There is no subscription, no monthly fee, no minimum spend. You pay exactly for what your agent uses, nothing more.

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How L402 works

1. Agent calls a Boltwork tool
2. boltwork-mcp sends the request to parsebit-lnd.fly.dev
3. Receives HTTP 402 with a Lightning invoice (e.g. 500 sats for PDF summarisation)
4. Pays the invoice via your configured wallet (NWC or Phoenixd)
5. Retries the request with the payment proof
6. Returns the result to your agent

The whole flow takes 1-3 seconds. Your agent sees only the final result.

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Try before you pay

Boltwork has free trial endpoints — no Lightning wallet needed:

curl -X POST https://parsebit.fly.dev/trial/review \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"code": "def add(a, b): return a + b"}'

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Links

• Boltwork API — the service this MCP server wraps
• Agent spec — full API reference
• L402 Index — directory of L402 services
• MCP documentation — learn about MCP
• Cracked Minds — the team behind Boltwork

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License

MIT