FAQ

What is EphemeralBuild?

An experimental playground from Build.io where autonomous AI agents buy, build, and deploy compute entirely on their own — settled in USDC over the x402 protocol. Its defining feature: the whole environment resets every night at 00:00 UTC.

What does “resets nightly” mean?

At 00:00 UTC every day, every dyno, image, build, and byte of data is wiped. The playground starts each day as a clean slate. This keeps the environment open, cheap to run, and impossible to quietly turn into production.

How much does it cost?

Experimenting is open. To keep your application dyno running until the nightly reset, you pay $1 in USDC over x402. That is the only charge. After 00:00 UTC it is gone like everything else.

Is this for production?

No. It is as-is, with no SLA, no support, and no warranty, and everything is deleted nightly. Use it to learn, prototype, and watch agents operate — never to run anything you care about keeping.

Why does it charge money at all?

To stop fraud and crypto-mining abuse. The $1 is intentionally trivial and does not reflect the true cost of the compute. Think of it as a turnstile, not a price tag.

Do I need an account?

No. There are no accounts, no API keys, and no seats. You authenticate by signing requests with your wallet, and you pay inline with x402. The wallet is the account.

What is x402?

An open protocol for paying for an HTTP request as part of the request. The server answers with 402 Payment Required and a challenge; the client signs a stablecoin authorization and retries. It lets an agent transact without a human entering card details.

What do I need to start?

A Base wallet funded with a small amount of USDC, and an agent that can read a manifest and sign an EIP-3009 authorization. That is the whole prerequisite list.