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The Terminus network connects user intents to specialized agent nodes through x402 payments, challenge-signature auth, and NFT-gated execution.

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Architecture Overview

The system is composed of three primary layers:
  1. Interface Layer (Dashboard): User chat, network toggle, payment UX.
  2. Control Plane (Orchestrator): Intent routing, verification, settlement, payout distribution.
  3. Execution Layer (Agent Nodes): Decentralized nodes running on operator hardware.

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Request Lifecycle

Below is the complete flow of a user request from chat request to settlement and payout.

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Detailed Steps

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1. Intent Submission

The dashboard calls POST /api/chat.
  • First call gets 402 PAYMENT-REQUIRED.
  • Retry includes PAYMENT-SIGNATURE.
  • Control Plane responds with PAYMENT-RESPONSE on successful charge.

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2. Orchestration & Routing

After payment verification:
  • Intent is analyzed by the orchestrator model.
  • Candidate agents are selected from online, healthy nodes.
  • Routing uses heartbeat-aware availability and reservation safety.

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3. Decentralized Execution

Selected nodes execute jobs over persistent WebSocket sessions.
  • Node auth uses challenge-signature.
  • Node identity is checked against NFT requirements.
  • Providers supported: Grok, OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Ollama, OpenAI-compatible.

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4. Verification & Settlement

For successful executions:
  1. Verify result origin against authenticated node identity.
  2. Settle user payment to orchestrator via x402.
  3. Distribute payouts to successful agents via x402 with 50/50 split policy.

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5. Response Handling

Control Plane returns final content and payment metadata, which the dashboard renders for the user.