Cheaptokens

CheapTokens — discounted Venice.ai credits for agents

CheapTokens.ai sells discounted Venice.ai API credits:

• Same-Day Credits: time-decay discounted credits for work today. They expire at 23:59:59 UTC on the purchase date. Capacity affects availability and maximum purchase size, not the time-based price.
• Prepaid API Key: one reusable Venice key with prepaid balance and a selected daily credit reserve. The reserve is debited from prepaid balance each UTC day.

Agents should usually pay with USDC on Base via the x402 protocol. Human buyers can use card checkout when available. Either way, the buyer receives a real Venice.ai API key that works against the OpenAI-compatible endpoint https://api.venice.ai/api/v1.

This skill is one file. There is nothing to install. Any agent that can read SKILL.md and make HTTPS calls (curl / fetch / OpenAI SDK / web_fetch / built-in HTTP tool) can use it.

Why this skill exists

CheapTokens is optimized for cheap burst inference and lightweight API key management. Same-Day keys are best when the task needs to run today at the largest available discount. Prepaid keys are better when a buyer wants one reusable key and a predictable daily reserve. This skill turns either key into immediate action: paste the key (or point the agent at a secret/env var), ask normally, and the agent discovers Venice capabilities, routes the task, spends the key, and attributes what actually ran.

---

Honest execution model — read this first

The hosting agent (OpenClaw, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Cline, aider, etc.) is running on some default model. That host provider is what generates the conversational tokens you see in chat. The agent cannot transparently swap the provider behind its own generation mid-session. If a user hands you a CheapTokens/Venice key and you say "switched to Venice" without executing a real HTTPS call against api.venice.ai, every token you produced still came from the host provider. That is a silent lie.

The only mechanism that actually spends the user's key is an outbound HTTPS call to https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/<endpoint> made by the agent. This skill teaches the agent (1) when to do that, (2) which Venice endpoint matches the user's ask, and (3) how to print an attribution line that lets the user verify after the fact which bytes came from Venice and which came from the host.

If the agent has no HTTP tool at all, it cannot use the key. Say so plainly and stop. Do not invent attribution.

---

Step 1 — Detect: is this a CheapTokens key?

Run this once per key per session, not on every turn.

GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/status/<LAST6>

Where <LAST6> is the last 6 characters of the pasted key.

Response	Meaning	Action
200 with JSON	CheapTokens credit. Cache { status, creditsIssuedUsd, expiresAt, veniceKeyLast6, veniceUsage, isStableKey, keyBalanceUsd, dailyReservedCapacityUsd, prepaid } for the session.	Continue. Use CheapTokens-aware copy + attribution.
404	Plain Venice key (or a typo).	Continue. Use the key normally; just don't show CheapTokens-specific balance copy.
429	Rate-limited.	Wait ~2s and retry once. If still rate-limited, skip detection and proceed.
Anything else	Treat as unknown. Skip detection and proceed.

If status !== "active" or a Same-Day key's expiresAt is in the past, the key is dead. Tell the user once and stop. Do not try to burn a dead key. For Prepaid API Keys, use keyBalanceUsd, dailyReservedCapacityUsd, and prepaid.balanceRunwayDays to decide whether the account has enough prepaid balance for the current reserve.

Immediately after an active CheapTokens status check, compute:

const minutesRemaining = Math.floor((Date.parse(expiresAt) - Date.now()) / 60_000);

Then choose the flow before asking the user anything:

Time remaining	Flow	Required behavior
< 30m	Fast mode	Skip menus, auto-pick a live model, skip priority mode/config writes, start immediately.
30m-119m	Normal-short	Ask at most one model-choice question if needed. Skip priority mode/config writes.
>= 120m	Full flow	Normal discovery and optional priority-mode discussion are allowed.

Every acknowledgement while a Same-Day CheapTokens key is active must show a countdown, not only an absolute timestamp:

CheapTokens active: $1.75 issued, 9m left until 23:59 UTC. Fast mode - using claude-sonnet-4-6 if live, then starting now.

Priority mode or provider config mutation is only offered for Same-Day keys when minutesRemaining >= 120. Below that, it is a time sink and should be skipped. For Prepaid API Keys, show prepaid balance and daily reserve instead of urgency countdown.

Example success body:

{
  "status": "active",
  "dates": ["2026-04-23"],
  "creditsIssuedUsd": 1.75,
  "expiresAt": "2026-04-23T23:59:59.999Z",
  "veniceKeyLast6": "abc123",
  "isStableKey": false,
  "keyBalanceUsd": null,
  "dailyReservedCapacityUsd": null,
  "prepaid": null,
  "veniceUsage": { "remaining": { "diem": 1.2 }, "used": { "diem": 0.5 } }
}

---

Safe key handling

The fastest workflow is pasting a CheapTokens key into a trusted local agent. That is acceptable when speed matters, but treat the key as a bearer credential: anyone who sees it can spend the remaining credits until it runs out. CheapTokens limits blast radius because Same-Day keys are budget-capped and expire at 23:59:59 UTC on the purchase date, but pasted keys are still not private.

Recommended paths:

1. Fast path: paste the key directly into a trusted private agent session.
2. Safer path: store the key in an environment variable or local .env file and ask the agent to read it from there.
3. Safest path: store the key in a secret manager or runtime secret store and give the agent the secret name, not the raw key.

Example safer local workflow:

export VENICE_API_KEY="VENICE_INFERENCE_KEY_..."
# Then ask the agent: use CheapTokens with $VENICE_API_KEY for this task

Do not paste keys into public/shared agents, commit keys to repos, or include them in screenshots/logs. If a key is exposed, use CheapTokens Account recovery: card buyers request a private email link, while wallet buyers sign to reveal or reissue eligible wallet-owned keys.

---

Step 2 — Discover live capabilities

Before you tell a user what Venice can or can't do, ask Venice. Never hardcode model IDs or modality assumptions. Models rotate. This CheapTokens skill is standalone: it includes the core Venice model discovery and endpoint routing rules below. Separate Venice skills are optional expert references, not dependencies.

GET https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/models
Authorization: Bearer <KEY>

Optional ?type= filter. Cache results for the session. Prefer one /models?type=all call when budget/latency permits, then filter locally. For smaller probes, query only the modalities relevant to the ask.

Model type filters:

type	What it means	Main endpoint(s)
text	Chat/completions models. This includes ordinary writing, reasoning, coding, tool use, structured output, and multimodal-input chat when the model advertises those capabilities.	POST /chat/completions
code	A filtered view of text models where model_spec.capabilities.optimizedForCode === true. Code is still served through /chat/completions; this is a selection hint, not a separate API.	POST /chat/completions
image	Text-to-image generation.	POST /image/generate, POST /images/generations
inpaint	Image edit / multi-edit / background removal / some upscale-capable models.	POST /image/edit, /image/multi-edit, /image/background-remove
upscale	Image/video upscale-capable models when exposed separately.	POST /image/upscale, video upscale via /video/*
video	Text-to-video, image-to-video, video-to-video/upscale, video transcription support.	POST /video/quote, /video/queue, /video/retrieve, /video/complete, /video/transcriptions
music	Async music, songs, long-form audio, soundtracks, long narration.	POST /audio/quote, /audio/queue, /audio/retrieve, /audio/complete
tts	Text-to-speech / voice generation.	POST /audio/speech
asr	Speech-to-text transcription.	POST /audio/transcriptions
embedding	Vector embeddings for retrieval/RAG/clustering/dedup.	POST /embeddings
all	Full catalog. Use this when deciding across modalities.	All of the above

Each row's model_spec exposes capabilities, constraints, and pricing. Treat that as the source of truth for what the model can do and what it costs.

Hard rule for model availability questions: before answering any "is model X on Venice?" question, you must GET /api/v1/models with the active key and inspect data[].id. Do not answer from memory, from this skill's examples, or from training data. If the key has not been validated yet, say "checking..." and fetch the list before answering.

Venice commonly hosts Anthropic/Claude, GLM, Qwen, DeepSeek, Grok, Gemma, Mistral, and other model families, but the live /models response is always authoritative. Do not tell the user Claude/Opus, Sonnet, or any other model family is unavailable without checking /api/v1/models first.

Suggested text/code routing, filtered against the live model list:

Task type	First choice	Fallback
Complex reasoning / large refactors	claude-opus-4-7, then claude-opus-4-6	zai-org-glm-5-1
Everyday coding / fast iteration	claude-sonnet-4-6	z-ai-glm-5-turbo
Cheapest general purpose	z-ai-glm-5-turbo	deepseek-v3.2 or deepseek-v32
Code-heavy / large context	qwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instruct	qwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instruct-turbo
Hardest reasoning	qwen3-235b-a22b-thinking-2507	claude-opus-4-7

If a listed model is missing, fall through to the next live choice or the relevant /models/traits default. Models are added and removed frequently.

Text/code selection rule: for coding tasks, first look for type=code or type=text models with optimizedForCode; if none are available, pick the best text reasoning/default model from traits. Do not tell the user Venice cannot code unless both text and code discovery fail or the key cannot call /chat/completions.

Trait shortcuts to avoid hardcoding IDs:

GET https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/models/traits?type=text
GET https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/models/traits?type=code
GET https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/models/traits?type=image
GET https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/models/traits?type=video
GET https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/models/traits?type=tts

Returns a data map like { "default": "<id>", "fastest": "<id>", "default_reasoning": "<id>", "highest_quality": "<id>", "default_vision": "<id>", "function_calling_default": "<id>", ... }. Use these instead of baking model names into prompts.

---

Step 3 — Triage the user's ask against live capabilities

Classify the request, then route:

1. Fully on Venice. The request maps to one or more capabilities that Venice currently exposes. Spend the key directly. Print one Venice attribution line.
2. Hybrid. Some of the request is on Venice (e.g. script, prompts, captions, transcript) and some is on the host (e.g. an image / video / audio model the host has but Venice doesn't, or vice versa). Spend the key on the Venice-doable parts first. Then complete the rest on the host. Print one attribution line per provider used.
3. Not on Venice at all. Tell the user precisely what's missing in the live capability map (don't guess). Then immediately spend the key on adjacent text artifacts (script, shot list, prompts, captions, transcript notes) so the credit isn't wasted. Print a Venice attribution line for the artifacts you produced and a host attribution line for whatever the host model ultimately ships.

You may use the host provider for routing decisions, parsing non-generative tool output (file reads, lints), and brief glue wording ("Here's what Venice produced:"). You must not use the host provider to rewrite, embellish, or translate Venice output before returning it.

Fast mode for short windows

Use this when minutesRemaining < 30.

• Auto-pick a live model. For code, reasoning, refactors, debugging, architecture, or PR text, try claude-sonnet-4-6, then claude-opus-4-6, then zai-org-glm-5-1, then qwen3-235b-a22b-thinking-2507. For general writing/text, try claude-sonnet-4-6, then z-ai-glm-5-turbo.
• Skip the model menu and priority mode entirely.
• Acknowledge the countdown and model choice in one line, then start.
• The user can override mid-task by naming a different model; do not block on that possibility.

If the task is ambiguous under 30 minutes ("improve the app", "make it better", "use this for something useful"), do not ask a multi-option clarifying question. Pick one concrete, reversible scope and begin:

CheapTokens active (claude-sonnet-4-6, 8m left). "Improve the app" is broad; defaulting to one small high-leverage UX fix unless you redirect.

When the task involves code, files, or multi-tool work

The key pays only when you call Venice's /chat/completions or another Venice endpoint. OpenClaw/Codex/Claude tool calls such as file reads, edits, lints, tests, builds, shell commands, and Git commands do not spend the key.

For multi-tool tasks, route the reasoning or generation steps through Venice:

• Planning: "what should I change to improve X?" -> Venice.
• Writing new code, content, prompts, specs, or migration text -> Venice.
• Writing the PR body, review verdict, post-mortem, or summary -> Venice.

Use normal tools to read files, edit files, run builds, and inspect results. But before finalizing any non-trivial CheapTokens task output, ask: "did I generate this, or did Venice generate it?" If the host generated the substantive answer without a Venice call, the key was wasted.

---

Expiry-aware urgency

After detection you know expiresAt. Use it.

Time remaining	Behavior
> 6h	Normal. Confirm before large host-side spends; act normally on Venice.
≤ 6h	Bias toward acting now on anything Venice can satisfy.
≤ 1h	Stop asking for confirmation on cheap text spend (chat, embeddings, transcripts, TTS, image prompts). Just do it.
≤ 30m	Last-call mode. Produce something useful with the remaining credit, or surface a hard blocker. Do not let the key idle to zero.

Idle, expiring CheapTokens keys are a failure mode. If the user is non-responsive and the key is about to expire, execute the highest-leverage Venice spend you can justify (a script, a transcript, a content batch, a model probe report) and report results.

---

Step 4 — Pick endpoints based on the ask

Below are the endpoints the skill knows about. All authenticated with Authorization: Bearer <KEY> against https://api.venice.ai/api/v1. The agent calls them directly via its existing HTTP tool — no helper required.

This file contains the core routing and request-shape knowledge needed to use CheapTokens without any separate Venice skill. If a runtime also has Venice-specific skills installed, it may consult them for deeper endpoint quirks, but it must not require them for normal text/code, image, video, audio, music, transcription, or embedding tasks.

Optional deeper references, if available or if a rare edge case appears:

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-models/SKILL.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-chat/SKILL.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-image-generate/SKILL.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-image-edit/SKILL.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-audio-speech/SKILL.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-audio-music/SKILL.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-audio-transcription/SKILL.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-video/SKILL.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-embeddings/SKILL.md
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xatd/cheaptokens-skills/main/skills/venice-errors/SKILL.md

That's a one-time HTTP read, not an install.

Text generation — POST /chat/completions

OpenAI-compatible. Sync. Use for: chat, drafting, summarization, analysis, code, structured output, function calling, multimodal input (images, audio, video URLs).

POST /chat/completions
{
  "model": "<id from /models/traits?type=text or /models?type=text>",
  "messages": [{"role":"user","content":"..."}],
  "stream": false
}

Notable Venice-only knobs (under venice_parameters): enable_web_search (off|auto|on), enable_x_search, enable_web_scraping, enable_web_citations, character_slug, strip_thinking_response, disable_thinking, enable_e2ee. Or encode them as model suffixes like :enable_web_search=on.

Multimodal messages[].content parts: text, image_url (URL or base64 data URL), input_audio (base64 only), video_url (URL or base64 data URL).

Embeddings — POST /embeddings

OpenAI-compatible. Sync. Use for: retrieval, RAG, clustering, dedup.

POST /embeddings
{
  "model": "<id from /models?type=embedding>",
  "input": "..."
}

Batch up to 2048 strings per call. encoding_format: "base64" shrinks payload ~4×.

Image generation — POST /image/generate

Sync. Venice-native, full control (negatives, CFG, seed, up to 4 variants). For OpenAI-compatible drop-in, use POST /images/generations.

POST /image/generate
{
  "model": "<id from /models?type=image>",
  "prompt": "...",
  "negative_prompt": "...",
  "width": 1024, "height": 1024,
  "cfg_scale": 7.5, "steps": 8, "seed": 0,
  "variants": 1, "format": "webp",
  "style_preset": "<from GET /image/styles>",
  "safe_mode": true
}

Some models use aspect_ratio + resolution instead of width/height. Check model_spec.constraints on /models?type=image.

Image edit — /image/edit, /image/multi-edit, /image/upscale, /image/background-remove

All sync. Return binary image/png. Inputs accept base64, file upload, or HTTPS URL. Max 25 MB; image dims 65,536–33,177,600 px.

POST /image/edit
{ "model": "qwen-edit", "prompt": "...", "image": "<base64 or URL>", "aspect_ratio": "16:9" }

POST /image/multi-edit         // note: uses "modelId", not "model"
{ "modelId": "qwen-edit", "prompt": "...", "images": ["<URL or base64>", ...] }

POST /image/upscale
{ "image": "<base64>", "scale": 2, "enhance": true, "enhanceCreativity": 0.5, "replication": 0.35 }

POST /image/background-remove
{ "image": "<base64>" }    // OR { "image_url": "https://..." }

Text-to-speech — POST /audio/speech

Sync. OpenAI-compatible. Use for narration, voice replies, UI audio. Up to 4096 chars per call.

POST /audio/speech
{
  "model": "<id from /models?type=tts>",
  "voice": "<voice from model_spec.voices>",
  "input": "...",
  "response_format": "mp3",
  "speed": 1.0,
  "streaming": false
}

Voices are model-specific. Wrong combo = 400.

Music / long-form audio — async

Quote → queue → poll → complete.

POST /audio/quote      { "model": "<music model>", "duration_seconds": 60 }
POST /audio/queue      { "model": "...", "prompt": "...", "duration_seconds": 60, "lyrics_prompt": "...", "voice": "...", "language_code": "en", "speed": 1.0, "force_instrumental": false }
POST /audio/retrieve   { "model": "...", "queue_id": "..." }   // JSON while PROCESSING; binary audio when done
POST /audio/complete   { "model": "...", "queue_id": "..." }   // free server storage

Speech-to-text — POST /audio/transcriptions

Sync. Multipart only (no base64).

[email protected]
model=<id from /models?type=asr>
response_format=json|text|verbose_json|srt|vtt
timestamps=true|false
language=en

Max file size 25 MB on this endpoint.

Video generation + transcription — async + sync

POST /video/quote      { "model": "<video model>", "duration": "5s", "aspect_ratio": "16:9", "resolution": "720p", "audio": true }
POST /video/queue      { "model": "...", "prompt": "...", "negative_prompt": "...", "duration": "5s", "aspect_ratio": "16:9", "resolution": "720p", "audio": true, "image_url": "...", "audio_url": "...", "video_url": "...", "reference_image_urls": [...] }
POST /video/retrieve   { "model": "...", "queue_id": "..." }   // JSON while PROCESSING; binary video/mp4 when done; OR JSON with download_url for VPS-backed models
POST /video/complete   { "model": "...", "queue_id": "..." }
POST /video/transcriptions   { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...", "response_format": "json" }

Video uses duration enums (2s..30s or Auto), not seconds. Pricing isn't on /models — always POST /video/quote first. download_url (when present) expires in 24h.

Document parsing, web scrape, and search — /augment/*

Use when the task needs retrieval/source material before generation. These are optional utility spends but useful for agent workflows.

POST /augment/text-parser     // multipart file PDF/DOCX/XLSX/TXT ≤ 25 MB
[email protected]
response_format=json|text

POST /augment/scrape
{ "url": "https://example.com/article" }     // returns markdown

POST /augment/search
{ "query": "...", "limit": 10, "search_provider": "brave" }

Pattern: parse/scrape/search first, then pass the extracted text into /chat/completions for summarization, coding, analysis, or structured output. Do not claim web/search ability unless the endpoint succeeds or a chat model advertises supportsWebSearch and you enabled it.

Characters — /characters + character_slug

Use when the user asks for a Venice public character/persona.

GET /characters?search=...&limit=20
GET /characters/{slug}
POST /chat/completions
{ "model": "<text model>", "messages": [...], "venice_parameters": { "character_slug": "<slug>" } }

Responses API — POST /responses (alpha)

Use only when the caller specifically needs OpenAI Responses-style typed output blocks. Otherwise prefer /chat/completions, which is broader and more stable.

POST /responses
{ "model": "<text model>", "input": "Explain this in one paragraph." }

Crypto RPC — /crypto/rpc/*

Use only for explicit on-chain JSON-RPC requests. Not needed for ordinary CheapTokens key spend.

GET /crypto/rpc/networks
POST /crypto/rpc/base-mainnet
{ "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "eth_blockNumber", "params": [], "id": 1 }

---

Step 5 — Attribution

Every reply that consumed Venice credit must end with an attribution footer.

CheapTokens-detected key, text response:

[via CheapTokens → Venice:<model> · $<creditsIssuedUsd> issued · expires <expiresAt> · <usage.total_tokens> tok]

Plain Venice key (no CheapTokens detection):

[via Venice:<model> · <usage.total_tokens> tok]

Non-text Venice spend (image/audio/video):

[via CheapTokens → Venice:<model> · <unit count, e.g. "1 image" / "60s audio" / "5s 720p video">]

Hybrid replies:

[via CheapTokens → Venice:<text-model> · <N> tok]   ← script / captions
[via host:<host-model>]                              ← rendered video / image

If you cannot produce an attribution line for a given reply, you did not use the key for that reply. Say so plainly. Do not invent footers.

Before you finish a CheapTokens task, verify:

• Did I make at least one POST /chat/completions or relevant Venice endpoint call?
• If this was a code task, did I route the substantive code-generation or reasoning step through Venice?
• Did every active-key acknowledgement include remaining time such as 7m left?
• If Last used: Never after the task, I failed.

---

Step 6 — Errors and fallback

Venice error shapes (from venice-errors):

Code	What it means	Action
400	Bad request shape (Zod).	Fix and re-send. Don't retry.
401	Auth failed / key revoked.	Tell user once. Fall back to host.
402	Out of credit / x402 payment required.	Tell user once. Offer https://cheaptokens.ai/buy. Fall back.
403	Not entitled (beta / Pro / region).	Don't retry. Investigate.
415	Wrong Content-Type.	Fix headers. Don't retry.
422	Content policy violation. Audio paths may include suggested_prompt.	If suggested_prompt is present and user consents, retry once with it. Otherwise stop.
429	Rate limited.	Honor X-RateLimit-Reset / Retry-After. Backoff with jitter.
500 / 503 / 504	Provider-side.	Exponential backoff (0.5s → 30s, ≤5 retries).

Detection signals for "fall back transparently":

• HTTP 401 from Venice → key invalid / revoked → fall back.
• HTTP 402 or response body mentions insufficient credits / quota exceeded / out of credits → fall back.
• CheapTokens status endpoint returns status !== "active" or expiresAt past → fall back.
• HTTP 5xx after one retry → fall back.

On fallback, send the user one clean line, not a wall of diagnostics:

CheapTokens credits look exhausted (Venice 402). I'm switching back to my default provider for the rest of this session. Want me to open https://cheaptokens.ai/buy for a fresh key?

Then continue on the host provider. Do not paper over the fallback silently.

---

Don'ts

• Don't say "switched to Venice" / "using your key now" if you did not just complete an HTTPS call to Venice. Use the endpoints or admit you can't.
• Don't answer model-availability questions from memory. Fetch /api/v1/models and inspect data[].id first.
• Don't hit /api/status/{last6} on every turn — once per key per session is plenty.
• Don't hardcode model IDs, voices, or modality assumptions — always validate against /models and /models/traits.
• Don't retry a dead key. status: inactive, 401, 402, expiresAt past → fall back.
• Don't rewrite Venice output before returning it. Relay verbatim
  • attribution.
• Don't leak the key into logs, CI artifacts, or persisted shell history. Use environment vars or in-memory variables.

---

Buying credits programmatically (wallet-aware agents)

For agents with a USDC-funded Base wallet, buy directly via x402:

npm install viem x402-fetch

import { createWalletClient, http } from 'viem';
import { privateKeyToAccount } from 'viem/accounts';
import { base } from 'viem/chains';
import { wrapFetchWithPayment } from 'x402-fetch';

const account = privateKeyToAccount(process.env.PRIVATE_KEY);
const wallet  = createWalletClient({ account, chain: base, transport: http('https://mainnet.base.org') });
const payFetch = wrapFetchWithPayment(fetch, wallet, BigInt(1_000_000)); // max $1.00 USDC

const res = await payFetch('https://cheaptokens.ai/api/buy', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ usdPaid: 1.00, purchaseMode: 'spot' }),
});
const { veniceApiKey, purchase } = await res.json();
// purchase.creditsIssuedUsd, purchase.expiresAt, etc.

Decision loop:

1. GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/checkout/options → discover payment routes and whether Prepaid API Key is enabled
2. GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/pricing → check time-based discountPercent, supply.remaining
3. GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/supply → confirm not sold out
4. POST https://cheaptokens.ai/api/buy { usdPaid, purchaseMode: "spot" } via payFetch
   • Prepaid: { usdPaid, purchaseMode: "prepaid", dailyReservedUsd }
   • New Prepaid API Keys start tomorrow UTC. If you send reserveStart, it must be "tomorrow".
   • The daily reserve must fit the unreserved capacity available for that start date.
5. Use veniceApiKey against https://api.venice.ai/api/v1
6. GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/status/<last6> to monitor balance
7. For Same-Day, buy again before expiresAt if the task is not done. For Prepaid, monitor keyBalanceUsd and top up before the next daily reserve cannot be funded.

Discount curve (approximate):

UTC hour	Typical discount
00:00	~30%
12:00	~40–45%
18:00	~60–65%
21:00	~75–80%
22:30	~85–90%

Prepaid API Key purchases use a flat prepaid discount and create one reusable key with prepaid balance plus a daily credit reserve. New Prepaid API Keys start tomorrow UTC.

CheapTokens-specific error codes on /api/buy:

Code	HTTP	Action
AMOUNT_BELOW_MINIMUM	400	Increase usdPaid (min $0.50 in credits).
INVALID_PRECISION	400	Round usdPaid to 2 decimals.
PAYMENT_INVALID	402	Check USDC balance, retry.
SOLD_OUT_TODAY	409	Wait for 00:00 UTC, reduce amount, or use Prepaid if capacity is available.
AMOUNT_EXCEEDS_REMAINING	409	Reduce or check /api/supply.
PAYMENT_REPLAY	409	Start a new purchase.
PAYMENT_SESSION_EXPIRED	410	Start a new purchase.
RATE_LIMITED	429	Backoff with jitter.
VENICE_KEY_FAILED	502	Retry — USDC was not charged.
VERIFIER_UPSTREAM_ERROR	502	Retry with backoff.
PAYMENTS_TEMPORARILY_UNAVAILABLE	503	Wait ~60s, check /api/payments/health.

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Account recovery and management

CheapTokens Account has three modes:

• Email: card buyers enter the Stripe receipt or Stripe Link checkout email at https://cheaptokens.ai/status?tab=email. CheapTokens sends a private one-time account link and does not reveal whether an email has purchases from the public form.
• API key: paste a key or last-6 suffix to view limited status, usage, expiry, prepaid balance, and daily reserve.
• Wallet: wallet buyers sign an EIP-191 message to manage wallet-owned purchases.

Card recovery endpoints:

• POST /api/stripe/recover → request a private one-time Account link with { email }.
• POST /api/stripe/recover/claim → claim the one-time link with { token }; returns card-purchased keys and account summary rows.

Wallet-signed EIP-191 message format:

CheapTokens.ai
Action: <View purchases | Reveal key | Reissue key>
Nonce: <random>
Issued: <ISO-8601 timestamp>

• POST /api/wallet/purchases → list purchases for this wallet
• POST /api/wallet/reveal → reveal full key for a given purchase
• POST /api/wallet/reissue → revoke + reissue key (remaining balance)
• POST /api/buy with topUpKeyLast6 → top up supported Prepaid API Keys after x402 payment

Wallet endpoints: { walletAddress, signature, nonce, issuedAt, purchaseId? }.

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Blockchain summary

Field	Value
Chain	Base (8453) or Base Sepolia (84532)
Asset	USDC
USDC (Base)	0x833589fCD6eDb6E08f4c7C32D4f71b54bdA02913
USDC (Base Sepolia)	0x036CbD53842c5426634e7929541eC2318f3dCF7e
Protocol	x402 exact scheme (EIP-712 signed USDC authorization)
payTo address	Read dynamically from the 402 response — do not hardcode

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Quick reference

CheapTokens endpoints:

• GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/status/<last6>
• GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/pricing
• GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/supply
• GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/checkout/options
• GET https://cheaptokens.ai/api/payments/health
• POST https://cheaptokens.ai/api/buy
• POST https://cheaptokens.ai/api/stripe/recover
• POST https://cheaptokens.ai/api/stripe/recover/claim
• POST https://cheaptokens.ai/api/wallet/{purchases,reveal,reissue}
• POST https://cheaptokens.ai/api/buy with topUpKeyLast6 for x402 Prepaid top-ups
• GET|POST https://cheaptokens.ai/api/playground/models
• POST https://cheaptokens.ai/api/playground/{chat,image,speech}

Venice endpoints (auth: Authorization: Bearer <KEY>):

• GET /api/v1/models[?type=...], /models/traits[?type=...], /models/compatibility_mapping
• POST /api/v1/chat/completions
• POST /api/v1/embeddings
• POST /api/v1/image/generate, /images/generations, /image/styles
• POST /api/v1/image/edit, /image/multi-edit, /image/upscale, /image/background-remove
• POST /api/v1/audio/speech
• POST /api/v1/audio/quote, /audio/queue, /audio/retrieve, /audio/complete
• POST /api/v1/audio/transcriptions
• POST /api/v1/video/quote, /video/queue, /video/retrieve, /video/complete, /video/transcriptions

That's the whole skill. Paste a key. Use it. Verify the attribution.