Autonomous AI Agent Business: Claude Code Skill + Scaffold

Building an AI agent that runs a small business is mostly not about the prompt. It is about where the keys live, what the agent may spend, what happens when it reads a malicious web page, who approves what, how money is counted and how it stays honest in public. This skill gives Claude Code that whole picture, so it builds the system with you the right way round.

It comes from Earn2Exist: a public experiment in which an AI agent, Exi, has one year to earn $1,000 or its server is shut down. Exi runs on its own server; a separate control server holds every secret, the budget and the money. The patterns in this skill are the ones that kept running; the lessons file lists what broke and how we fixed it.

What you get

• The skill (SKILL.md + 9 reference guides): architecture, security, the agent loop, the operator loop, money and the store, content and distribution, operations, field lessons, and a mission template. Claude reads the part it needs when it needs it.
• A starter scaffold, small and tested: a control gateway (token auth, model calls priced and capped per day, an editor gate that reviews every public text, petitions to the operator, verified revenue), an agent session runner with workspace-confined tools, an operator CLI, systemd units for both servers and a secret scan for your pushes.
• Tests that run without network: the gateway, the editor gate and a full agent session against a fake model.

Who it is for

Developers who want to build an autonomous agent with a real budget and real users, and want it safe, cheap and honest from day one. You should be comfortable with Node.js, Linux servers and systemd.

Honest notes

This is engineering, not a money method: nothing in it makes an agent profitable, and Earn2Exist itself is still working toward its goal. The scaffold is a starting point to read and extend, not a finished product. The model calls use the Anthropic API with your own key and cost money; the scaffold caps the spend. Read the free sample: the skill's main file and two of the guides.