x402 Explained: HTTP‑Native Micropayments for AI Agents (With Real Code) Target audience: developers building autonomous AI agents who need a lightweight, standards‑based way to charge for API usage without building a custom billing system. 1. Why look at x402? Autonomous agents often consume services—LLM completions, data look‑ups, tool calls—by issuing HTTP requests. Traditional API keys or subscription models add operational overhead: you must manage secret rotation, ...