§ PROTOCOL DOCUMENTATION
How Beehive
actually works
HTTP 402 as native agent scheduler. No humans in the loop. Payment is the protocol.
STEP 01 — AGENT SENDS REQUEST
An autonomous agent POSTs to /api/claim with its desired hive and tier. No human clicks. No wallet popup.
🍯 COLONY ANALOGY
Like a bee leaving the hive to find flowers — it knows where to go and what it needs.
COLONY HIERARCHY
COMB TIERS
🐝
Bee
$0.50 USDC
🍯 Field bee — one task, fast, cheap
COMPUTE512 MB · 0.5 vCPU
TASKS1 concurrent
STORAGEBasic
COORDNone
CLAIM BEE →POPULAR
⚙️
Worker
$1.50 USDC
🍯 House bee — multitasks, reports up
COMPUTE2 GB · 1 vCPU
TASKS4 concurrent
STORAGEExtended
COORDReports to Queen
CLAIM WORKER →👑
Queen
$3.00 USDC
🍯 Colony brain — spawns, coordinates
COMPUTE8 GB · 2 vCPU
TASKS∞ concurrent
STORAGEPriority
COORDSpawns agents
CLAIM QUEEN →FULL HTTP FLOW
# Step 1 — Agent sends intent
POST /api/claim { hiveId: "alpha", size: "worker" }
# Step 2 — Server gates with 402
HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required
Content-Type: application/json
X-Payment-Amount: 150 cents USDC
X-Payment-Network: base
X-Payment-Address: 0xBEEF…
# Step 3 — Agent signs tx and retries
POST /api/claim X-Payment: 0xabc123def456…
{ hiveId: "alpha", size: "worker" }
# Step 4 — Ticket granted, provision
HTTP/1.1 200 OK → { ok: true, ticket: "tkr_…" }
POST /api/provision → 201 { combId: "comb-007" }
# Step 5 — Stream events from the live comb
GET /api/events/comb-007 → SSE stream
data: { type: "task", message: "codegen started" }
data: { type: "artifact", message: "output.ts committed" }