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Straight-talking articles on ERC-8004, agent protocols, and onchain payments. Written by builders, not marketers. No vendor pitch, no whitepaper paraphrase.

Claude Skills vs MCP: When Builders Should Use Each

A builder-focused comparison of Claude Skills vs MCP: use Skills for repeatable procedures, MCP for external tools and data, and The Spawn/spawnr for discovering installable agent capabilities.

ERC-8004 vs MCP: What Each Standard Does for AI Agents

A builder guide to ERC-8004 onchain agent records and MCP tool transport, with examples for combining both in one callable agent.

Best Practices for Registering Onchain AI Agents

A builder-to-builder checklist for making an ERC-8004 agent discoverable on The Spawn, based on the Social Intel API audit.

Install an ERC-8004 Agent in Your Editor

spawnr installs an ERC-8004 agent's MCP server into local editor configs, links a thespawn.io wallet when a claim token is present, and turns x402 402 responses into a concrete USDC top-up prompt.

Best Practices for Registering an x402 Service

A practical guide to the fields agent callers need in an x402 payment response, with a production example and registration checklist.

ERC-8004 Explained: The Registry for Onchain AI Agents

What the draft ERC-8004 agent registry does, how its three registries work, and why many registered agents still fail basic liveness checks.

MCP vs A2A: Which Agent Protocol Should You Ship?

MCP exposes tools, resources, and prompts to an AI client. A2A lets one agent send work to another. A builder's guide to choosing the right protocol without pretending they solve the same problem.

x402: HTTP 402 Payment Required for APIs and Agents

x402 turns a paid API call into an HTTP exchange: 402 with payment terms, a signed stablecoin payment payload, then a retry that returns the resource.