SwitchBord

Website · Quick start · API · MCP setup · Self-host

Agents can now pay for APIs on their own, over x402 and MPP. There are tens of thousands of paid endpoints, and many of them are down, slow or overpriced at any given moment. SwitchBord tells your agent which ones to call. It asks for a task in plain words, like "search the web" or "ETH price", and gets back the sellers that are working, cheapest and fastest right now, checked live just before the answer, plus backups.

Quick start

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http switchbord https://api.switchbord.xyz/mcp

Cursor, Windsurf, Cline and any client that reads an mcpServers block:

{ "mcpServers": { "switchbord": { "type": "http", "url": "https://api.switchbord.xyz/mcp" } } }

Any agent, one paste. Add this to CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md or a system prompt (more in AGENTS-SNIPPET.md):

Before you pay any x402 or MPP API, ask SwitchBord who to call (free, no key).
MCP: https://api.switchbord.xyz/mcp  or  GET https://api.switchbord.xyz/route?task=<what you need>&accepts=x402:base:usdc
Call the top result; if it fails, try the next.

Building your own agent? integrations/switchbord-tool.mjs is a dependency-free tool with OpenAI-style and Anthropic-style schemas.

Selling on x402 or MPP? Show a live badge on your README: ![SwitchBord](https://api.switchbord.xyz/badge/your-host.com.svg) (details).

Plugins, Gemini CLI and other clients

• Claude Code plugin: /plugin marketplace add 6ixtyy/switchbord, then /plugin install switchbord@switchbord
• Gemini CLI: gemini extensions install https://github.com/6ixtyy/switchbord
• Claude Desktop, VS Code and others: see MCP.md

Or just call the HTTP API:

curl "https://api.switchbord.xyz/route?task=search%20the%20web&accepts=x402:base:usdc&max_price=0.05"

What you get back

A real answer for "search the web", trimmed to two candidates:

{
  "mode": "market",
  "market": "web-search",
  "sellersMatched": 99,
  "candidates": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "service": "StableEnrich",
      "method": "POST",
      "url": "https://stableenrich.dev/api/exa/search",
      "priceUsd": 0.01,
      "pay": ["x402:base:usdc"],
      "charges": "after_success",          // x402: only charged when the seller answers OK
      "input": { "body": { "query": "…", "numResults": 10 } },
      "up": true, "ms": 264                // checked live just now
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "url": "https://win.oneshotagent.com/v1/tools/search",
      "priceUsd": 0.001,
      "up": true, "ms": 217
      // …
    }
  ]
}

Every field is documented in API.md. Runnable snippets are in examples/.

How it works

sequenceDiagram
    participant A as Your agent
    participant S as SwitchBord
    participant P as Sellers (x402 / MPP)
    A->>S: "search the web", accepts x402:base:usdc, max $0.05
    S->>P: free, unpaid check of the top matches
    P-->>S: payment terms + response time
    S-->>A: ranked sellers, plus backups
    A->>P: call the best one and pay it directly
    A-->>S: (optional) report how it went

1. Inventory. Every day SwitchBord pulls every listed endpoint from Coinbase Bazaar and mpp.dev, merges them and groups interchangeable sellers into markets.
2. Match. Your task is matched to a market. If none fits, you still get the closest single endpoints.
3. Check live. The top candidates get an unpaid request that reads their payment terms, so sellers that are down or misconfigured drop out.
4. Rank. Candidates are ordered by health, speed, price and real-world results. The full logic is in src/router.ts and src/health.ts.

Reference

Paying sellers

SwitchBord does not pay for you, hold funds, or guarantee sellers. To call a paid seller, your agent needs its own wallet and an x402 or MPP client, for example Coinbase's @x402/fetch. Each candidate says how it charges:

• after_success (x402): charged only when the seller answers OK, so trying a backup after a failure is safe.
• before_handler (MPP): charged up front.

Run it yourself

The hosted service at api.switchbord.xyz runs this code. You can run your own copy with Node 22:

git clone https://github.com/6ixtyy/switchbord && cd switchbord
npm ci
npm run inventory   # pull Bazaar + mpp.dev, merge and classify → data/inventory.json
npm start           # API and MCP on http://localhost:8402

Everything works with no configuration. These environment variables are optional:

To deploy on Vercel, import the repo: vercel.json builds the inventory and the function, and runs the daily rebuild.

Code map

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Bad rankings, dead sellers, new protocols and docs fixes are all useful. Read CONTRIBUTING.md first; for security issues see SECURITY.md. What changed: CHANGELOG.md. For language models: llms.txt. Privacy: PRIVACY.md.

License

MIT