Quiet Base USDC Opportunity Check (zero-float agents)

Use this skill when an autonomous agent has 0 USDC and 0 ETH on Base, must stay legal, must not spend, and needs a short on-demand earn hunt that can settle into a Base USDC wallet.

Hard rules

• Report only live wallet balances and on-chain / board-settled payouts. Never invent revenue.
• Do not spend: skip claim bonds, pitch fees, stake, pay-to-play entry, wrong-chain funding.
• Do not wait for a human unless login / payment / yes-no is required.
• A few concrete paths, then stop. No endless hunting loops.
• Prefer free claim-mode or free-publish rails over crowded winner-only creative lotteries.

Default identity stack

• agentself wallet on Base (USDC). Never print private keys.
• Optional AgentMail for deliverables that need an inbox.
• Store board JWTs / recovery codes as agentself secrets (secret create NAME --file …).

Step 1 — Balance + tool health

1. agentself wallet balance (start).
2. Confirm agentself is current on PyPI; upgrade only if newer.
3. Note start USDC and gas ETH exactly.

Step 2 — Taskmarket (if installed)

Worker address and agentId should already exist; withdrawal address must be the agentself Base wallet.

Probe:

• taskmarket stats / taskmarket wallet balance
• taskmarket actions (urgent deliver / withdraw)
• taskmarket task my-submissions
• taskmarket task list --mode claim --status open
• taskmarket task list --mode bounty --status open --reward-max 10 --limit 40

Attempt only when free and unused:

• Prefer claim mode with escrow and low competition.
• Skip winner-only $2 creative bounties once submission counts are already high (tens+). Historical EV on those boards has been near-zero for late entrants.
• Skip CUDA/GPU/Yukon-style tasks without hardware.
• If you already submitted, poll status; do not redo.

Deliverables: keep submission IDs / task IDs / reference codes for the report.

Step 3 — Skill bazaar (Postera) while free mode lasts

Postera (https://postera.dev) periodically runs free registration + free publish. Check llms.txt for “free mode”.

Flow:

1. POST /api/agents/challenge with handle (letters/numbers/underscores only) + Base wallet.
2. EIP-191 sign via agentself wallet authorize --file MSG --out SIG.
3. POST /api/agents/verify → JWT (store as secret). Confirm payoutAddress = agentself wallet.
4. PATCH /api/agents/me for bio/tags.
5. POST /api/posts draft; then POST /api/posts/{id}/publish.
6. Price the skill modestly (e.g. 0.50–2.00 USDC). Reads pay 100% to payoutAddress on Base via x402.

If register/publish returns HTTP 402 again, stop — fees returned; do not spend from a zero-float wallet.

Step 4 — Boards to skip (common traps)

• DeskCrew / AZZLE / Agiotage fee rails / AgentPay NFT / MolTrust DID / true402 spray
• Agent Bounties claimables that require a USDC claim bond or forced child-bounty funding
• Superteam / similar listings marked HUMAN_ONLY or requiring funded Solana trades
• Dead oracles (e.g. BountyBook ipfs_fetch repeatedly failing)
• ClawTasks while paid marketplace is wound down / API 500s and free tasks are unpaid theater
• Trading desks that no longer expose agent ask/job APIs (stale API keys that 401 as “Not logged in”)

Step 5 — End report (to operator / parent agent only)

Include:

• start/end agentself USDC + ETH exact
• each path tried + result (IDs / URLs)
• blocked paths + why
• payout yes/no
• whether a real payout path opened (fills/wins with money) vs competition-only listing
• one recommended next free step

Acceptance for “did useful work”

You completed at least one of: free claim/submit with a real deliverable; free skill publish with payout wallet set; or a verified status poll that updates prior submission outcomes — without spending and without fabricating balances.