Tools · Wallets & toolkits

lightning-agent-tools

Lightning Labs' production AI-agent toolkit — composable skills plus an MCP server that let an agent run a node, pay L402 APIs, host paid endpoints, and keep its keys isolated.

What it is

lightning-agent-tools is Lightning Labs’ open-source toolkit for letting AI agents transact natively on the Lightning Network. It packages composable skills plus an MCP server covering the full commerce loop: run an LND node programmatically; isolate keys with a remote signer; bake scoped macaroons in preset roles (pay-only, invoice-only, read-only, channel-admin, signer-only); pay for L402-gated APIs via the lnget client; host paid endpoints via the Aperture reverse proxy; query node state over MCP; and orchestrate buyer/seller workflows.

It is the canonical 2026 reference implementation for what a production Bitcoin-substrate agent-payment stack actually looks like — the surface most subsequent agent-Lightning integrations are measured against.

When to use it

• Building an agent that both pays for and sells services over Lightning end-to-end.
• You want least-privilege key handling (remote signer + scoped macaroons) out of the box.
• Connecting an MCP-capable agent (e.g. Claude Code) to a real Lightning node.

Dependencies

An LND-compatible Lightning node as the backend — itself backed by a Bitcoin node (Bitcoin Core, full or pruned) or run in Neutrino light-client mode — ideally a watch-only node plus a separate remote signer, so the agent host holds no keys. Open-source; Docker is the default deployment path.

Quick start

Add the MCP server to an MCP-capable agent backed by a Lightning Node Connect node:

claude mcp add --transport stdio lnc -- npx -y @lightninglabs/lightning-mcp-server

The agent can then query node state and send/receive Lightning payments through MCP tool calls. Production deployment runs against any LND-compatible backend; Docker is the default path.

Gotchas

• Use the recommended watch-only node + remote signer model so the agent host holds no private keys; the README explicitly warns never to ship admin.macaroon in production — use scoped macaroons.
• Early-stage (v0.2.x as of February 2026) — APIs and surface area are still moving; pin versions.
• The MCP server exposes read-only node tools by default; mutating operations require deliberately scoped credentials.