Autonomous software is going to transact, and it needs money that's final, divisible to the sat, and permissionless — which is a description of Lightning. The hard part isn't the rail, it's control: you can't give an agent your keys.
Conduit is a self-hosted, non-custodial SDK that sits between your LND node and your agents. The operator keeps the node and keys; each agent gets a budget and a policy it can't exceed, enforced server-side before anything hits Lightning. Per-tx / daily / rate / allowlist limits. Non-custodial at the operator layer, hard-capped at the agent layer.
Python + TS SDKs and an MCP server (so Claude/Cursor can pay as a tool call). The platform fee is configurable and fully yours — set it to zero if you want; it's your node. The core is MIT and free. pip install conduit-btc.
Early and single-operator, one real mainnet payment settled. Sharing it here because this crowd will have the sharpest questions.