with·al /wɪðˈɔːl/ — from wherewithal: the means to get it done

Agents stop at missing capabilities.
Withal acquires them.

One call — withal.acquire() — and your agent discovers, purchases, and uses the APIs, data, and services it wasn't shipped with. Policy-checked, budget-capped, receipted down to the on-chain transaction.

Book a call See it run ↓

Developer preview — free for design partners.

research-agent · live acquisition

      
Real run — nothing simulated. Verify the $0.05 USDC settlement on Basescan ↗
5capabilities acquired
5providers, zero pre-integration
$0.05settled on-chain
0human interventions
Providers charge however they charge
Existing API keys x402 · USDC on Base Stripe MPP MCP services Enterprise subscriptions
Agents never see any of it
The problem

Capabilities are fixed at deploy time.

Agents are limited to the tools developers wire up beforehand. The moment a task needs something that wasn't integrated, the agent stops and waits for a human.

Agent · fixed capability ceiling
Search
Browser
Database
Company records
Phone calls
Premium data
Specialized inference
Agent + Withal · no ceiling
Search
Browser
Database
Company recordsacquired at runtime
Phone callsacquired at runtime
Premium dataacquired at runtime
Specialized inferenceacquired at runtime
How it works

Discover. Authorize. Acquire.

The agent asks for a capability, not a vendor. Withal does the rest — and every step comes back with a receipt.

01

Discover

Withal matches the request against a registry of providers and picks by price, policy, and reliability — with automatic failover when a provider degrades.

02

Authorize

Every acquisition passes the policy engine before a cent moves or a byte leaves: task budgets, allowed categories, approval thresholds, blocked data flows.

03

Acquire

Withal executes the call, handles payment and auth on whatever rail the provider uses, and returns the result with a receipt — down to the on-chain transaction.

The primitive

One call. No keys, no vendors, no payment logic.

Describe what the agent needs and the constraints it must respect. Provider selection, authorization, and settlement happen behind the call.

from withal import Withal

withal = Withal(agent_id="research-agent")

result = withal.acquire(
    capability="company_enrichment",
    input={"company": "Acme Robotics"},
    max_cost=0.20,
)
Control

Autonomy, inside rules you declare.

Policies are checked before anything moves. Denials are answers, not errors — the agent keeps working with what it has.

Policy · research-agent
Daily budget
$25
Allowed
Search
Company data
Market data
Requires approval
! Purchases > $5
Blocked
× Customer PII sharing
WITHAL · RECEIPT
capabilityprivate_markets_premium
provider quote$8.00
budget remaining$0.95
policyDENIED
agent continued with acquired sources
Use cases

Every agent runs into something it wasn't given.

Research agentbuys company & filings data
Sales agentbuys contact enrichment
Financial agentbuys market data
Coding agentbuys compute & inference
Travel agentbuys inventory access
Your agentbuys what it's missing
SEARCH COMPANY DATA WEB CONTENT FILINGS NEWS FINANCIAL DATA PHONE CALL COMPUTE INFERENCE MAPS
FAQ

Questions engineers ask first.

What actually happens when my agent calls acquire()?

Withal matches the capability request against its provider registry, selects a provider by price, policy, and reliability, runs the request through your policy engine (budgets, allowed categories, thresholds), executes the call — handling payment and auth on the provider's rail — and returns the result plus a receipt. Failover to the next provider is automatic.

Do I need a crypto wallet?

No. Payment rails are an implementation detail. Some providers use API keys, some use subscriptions, some price per-request over x402 with USDC on Base — Withal handles each behind the same acquire() call. Your agent code never changes when the rails do.

How do I control what an agent can spend?

You declare policy per agent: daily and per-task budgets, allowed capability categories, per-purchase approval thresholds, and blocked data flows. Every acquisition is checked before anything moves, and a denial comes back as a structured answer the agent can plan around.

What capabilities exist today?

The developer preview covers search, company enrichment, web content, news, and filings, with paid providers settling real USDC on Base. The registry grows with design partners — if your agent needs a capability we don't route yet, that's exactly the conversation we want. Providers onboard with a manifest, no code changes on your side.

What does it cost?

The developer preview is free for design partners. After that: provider costs pass through at cost, plus a small per-acquisition fee. No subscription, no seats.

How do I get access?

Book a call and tell us what your agent is missing. Design partners get white-glove integration and a direct line on the roadmap.

Build agents that can get what they need.

Withal is in developer preview. Tell us what your agent is missing.