Show and tell: GoldBean API — Pay-per-call Baidu AI marketplace with x402 + MCP integration

[wuzenghai616-lang]

GoldBean API — x402-Powered MCP Server for Baidu AI Services

Registry: io.github.wuzenghai616-lang/goldbean
Live: https://goldbean-api.xyz
npm: goldbean-mcp

What it does

GoldBean bridges Baidu AI capabilities (OCR, translation, TTS, ASR, LLM chat, image recognition, NLP) to the global AI agent economy via MCP + x402 micropayments. No API keys, no signup — AI agents pay per call with USDC on Base.

Key features

• 47 endpoints covering Baidu AI (13 endpoints), OpenAI-compatible APIs (6 endpoints), and utility endpoints (weather, gas, crypto, etc.)
• x402 protocol for native HTTP 402 micropayments — agents pay with USDC on Base mainnet, 2-second settlement
• Free tier: 50 calls/day, no payment needed
• Pricing: $0.01-$0.03 per call (USDC)
• Alternative payments: PayPal and Alipay for non-crypto users
• MCP transport: HTTP+SSE at https://goldbean-api.xyz/sse

Baidu AI endpoints

Endpoint	Description	Price
/paid/baidu-ocr	General text OCR	$0.02
/paid/baidu-ocr-accurate	High-accuracy OCR	$0.03
/paid/baidu-idcard	ID card recognition	$0.02
/paid/baidu-tts	Text-to-speech	$0.02
/paid/baidu-translate	Multi-language translation	$0.02
/paid/baidu-llm-chat	ERNIE LLM chat	$0.03
/paid/baidu-asr	Speech recognition	$0.03
/paid/baidu-image-recognition	Object/scene recognition	$0.02
/paid/baidu-face-detect	Face detection	$0.02
/paid/baidu-nlp	NLP (sentiment, keywords)	$0.02
/paid/baidu-helixfold	Protein structure prediction	$0.03

Discovery endpoints

• /.well-known/x402.json — x402 payment discovery
• /.well-known/mcp.json — MCP server manifest
• /.well-known/x402-bazaar — x402 Bazaar v2 service discovery
• /llms.txt — LLM-readable service description
• /openapi.json — OpenAPI 3.0 spec

Quick start

Claude Desktop / Cursor:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "goldbean": {
      "url": "https://goldbean-api.xyz/sse"
    }
  }
}

npm:

npx goldbean-mcp

Direct x402 call:

curl https://goldbean-api.xyz/paid/baidu-ocr?image_url=https://example.com/test.jpg \n  -H "x-payment: <x402_payment_payload>"

Why Baidu AI?

Most x402/MCP servers focus on Western AI providers. GoldBean is the first to bring Chinese AI capabilities (Baidu ERNIE, Baidu OCR with Chinese character support, Baidu translation supporting 28+ languages including minority languages) to the global agent economy. This enables:

• Cross-cultural document processing (Chinese OCR + translation)
• Multi-model LLM routing (ERNIE alongside GPT/Claude)
• Cost-effective alternatives for high-volume OCR/translation workloads

Tech stack

• Node.js + Express on AlmaLinux VPS
• x402 middleware (EIP-3009 gasless transfers)
• MCP SDK (HTTP+SSE transport)
• PM2 process management

Links

• GitHub
• npm
• MCP Registry
• Live API
• OpenAPI Spec

Feedback and suggestions welcome! Especially interested in:

1. What Baidu AI endpoints would be most useful to add next?
2. Should we add Solana support alongside Base?
3. Any interest in a Chinese-language MCP community channel?