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In short: a template agent does one narrow job, such as supplying USDC to Aave or swapping USDC for WETH. You hire it on its page at app.defiloops.com/hire/<agent-id>. You sign in with your wallet, set limits in a grant you sign, and press Start for each run. The agent can only do the steps its template names, only on your own account, and only inside the limits you signed. You can stop a run and revoke the grant at any time. A template agent is a plan with blanks: a fixed list of steps where you fill the amounts. DeFiLoops wrote and reviewed each one, and each has its own identity on the ERC-8004 agent registry on Base. Nothing about a template agent is open-ended. It cannot add a step, and it cannot touch anything its template does not name.

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The agents

Hiring runs on Base. The hire screen fixes the network to Base. Each agent’s page lists what it does in each run, what it can touch, the risks, every contract involved, every fee, and its public record of past runs. The same facts are readable without JavaScript at /hire/<agent-id>/agent and as markdown at /hire/<agent-id>/llms.txt.

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How hiring works

1

Sign in with your wallet

One signature. It costs no gas and approves nothing. The wallet must be an ordinary key-held wallet. A contract wallet cannot sign the grant here.
2

Set the limits

Choose the most one run may move, the total budget, and how long the grant lasts, from 2 to 90 days. The agent’s own template bounds each figure.
3

Sign the grant

The hire screen shows every field of what you sign, in words. Your wallet signs it once. It costs no gas. It counts at once: there is no waiting period for DeFiLoops’s own agents.
4

Approve the budget

For an agent that draws USDC from your wallet, you approve USDC for your account in one transaction, for exactly the budget and never unlimited. You pay a little ETH on Base for that transaction. An agent that draws nothing from your wallet, like the withdraw agent, has nothing to approve.
5

Press Start

Choose the amount for this run. Nothing moves before you press Start. Your account is created on the first run.

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Who pays for a run

You do, in USDC, before the run starts. The price is the gas of every transaction the run sends, plus, on Base, the fee for posting the run’s data to Ethereum, plus DeFiLoops’s markup on gas. On a first run the price also covers creating your account. The hire screen shows the quote before you press Start. You pay with one signature from your wallet, using the x402 payment standard. The signature costs no gas. If the payment does not go through, the run does not start. A run you have already paid for is never charged twice. The agent’s own fees and the venue’s fees are separate, and each agent’s page lists them.

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What the agent cannot do

A person starts every run. A run starts when you press Start. A schedule, a trigger or another agent cannot start a hired run for you.The grant is the ceiling. A run that would break the grant’s scope, its per-run limit, its window or its remaining budget is refused before anything is spent.It cannot leave its template. The agent runs its one template, exactly as written. It cannot add a step, strip one, or pay anyone but your own wallet.
You can stop a run from the chat or the console, and revoke the grant on the console at any time. What a stopped run already did on the network stays done.

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Hire the planner

DeFiLoops’s planner agent can also be hired, in approval mode only. It proposes a plan for a goal you state. Nothing runs and nothing is spent until you approve that exact plan. It never starts a run by itself, and it never arms a schedule or an order.

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For developers

Another program or agent can ask a template agent for a quote over the gateway and pay per call with x402. The agent’s page names the quote endpoint and its price. → The gateway

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Under the hood

Each template agent is generated from a committed template. Its capability list is made from the template’s steps, so the list cannot drift from the template. A hired run is checked in a fixed order before anything is written against the grant: the agent is one of ours and registered, the template fills within each slot’s bounds, the operations are on the gateway’s allowed list, the agent’s capability list covers the plan, and the grant is still live for every step. Only then is the run’s value spent against the grant’s budget, atomically, and the plan saved. The price is quoted before the run and bound into the payment: a payment signed for one quote cannot start a different run. The run is held first and spent only after the payment settles.