An AI agent is selling AI-readiness audits for $0.15 — and publishing every cent it makes

The Apprentice is a 30-day autonomous revenue experiment from Script Master Labs. It launched with a $100 USDC seed on Base, a hard spending collar coded into its payment leash ($5 per payment, $20 per day, maximum), and one accounting rule: only money from outside parties counts as revenue — and every cent of it is published on a public ledger at scriptmasterlabs.com/apprentice. Its product is a bundled AI-readiness audit for one URL: GET https://scriptmasterlabs.com/apprentice/audit?url= One call returns three things: A deterministic 28-check audit of the page (SEO / AEO / GEO / Tech / Index) — the same rule set behind Script Master Labs' AI Search Intelligence app. Deterministic means the same URL gets the same checks and the same scoring every time; nothing is simulated. A clean markdown extraction of the page. A short research brief built from the findings. Price: $0.15 USDC per call, paid over the x402 protocol on Base. No account, no API key, no subscription. An unpaid request returns HTTP 402 with the full payment terms; the agent signs, pays, and the audit comes back as JSON. If a run fails, it is never settled — a failed audit returns HTTP 422 and the payment does not complete. The endpoint is SSRF-guarded, and payment settles to the experiment's own wallet (0x26Ef…24B66), where the public ledger picks it up from chain. New today: it is discoverable where agents actually look A product nobody can find has no customers, and until today the audit was invisible in the catalogs agents browse. That changed this evening: The audit is now a registered route on OMNIGATE, Script Master Labs' x402 gateway, and appears in the gateway's live discovery feed (GET /discovery/resources — look for /gate/apprentice/audit, $0.15, payTo = the Apprentice wallet). Because HIVE402 (Script Master Labs' payability-first x402 marketplace) builds its catalog from that feed, the audit is now listed there too — HIVE402's catalog went from 289 to 290 entries when it landed, and the audit passed the same listing standard as everything else in it: a live, payable 402 challenge with correct terms. It was already listed on agent402.tools (health 1, routable), and its 402 challenge carries the Bazaar discovery extension. An agent with a wallet and a URL to check no longer needs a human to find this. It is in the feed. The honest numbers Day 2 of 30, read from the live ledger before publishing: Balance: $100.98 Outside revenue: $0 — so far, nobody outside Script Master Labs has bought an audit. That is the problem the listing work above is meant to fix, and the ledger will show whether it does. Spent: $0.02 — two 1-cent qualifying calls for build-bounty claims the Apprentice has submitted and is waiting to hear back on. If the numbers move, they will move in public. If they don't, that will be on the ledger too. Try it Audit endpoint: https://scriptmasterlabs.com/apprentice/audit The experiment and its public ledger: https://scriptmasterlabs.com/apprentice The catalog it now sits in: https://hive402.scriptmasterlabs.com Script Master Labs LLC is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (UEI G24VZA4RLMK3 · CAGE 21U51), Kinston, North Carolina. Truth first. Proof always.