plugin-tereno

🛡️ A pre-signature security layer for ElizaOS agents on Base

Before your agent signs, it checks. One paid call flags unlimited approvals, suspicious contracts, unexpected balance changes and abnormal gas — and returns a single, standardized verdict your agent can branch on.

bun add plugin-tereno

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📦 What gets installed

One command is enough:

bun add plugin-tereno

You do not need to install tereno-client separately. Your package manager installs it automatically as a dependency of this plugin.

Your ElizaOS project
  └─ plugin-tereno       installed locally: ElizaOS actions, budgets, fail-closed policy and dry-run
       └─ tereno-client  installed automatically: quote, x402 payment and receipt client
            └─ Tereno API (https://www.tereno.xyz)  hosted: capabilities, artifacts, cache and opportunity aggregation

The Tereno backend, databases, caches, internal routes and secrets are not downloaded into your project. The plugin only calls the hosted API. A Base wallet signs x402 payments locally, and only when you turn off dry-run and the quoted price is within your configured budget.

Which package should I use? Install plugin-tereno for an ElizaOS agent. Install tereno-client directly only if you are building for another runtime and want the lower-level x402 client.

⚡ Why this exists

Autonomous agents sign transactions with no instinct for danger. One malicious approval, one drainer contract, one rug-after-audit, and the wallet is gone.

plugin-tereno gives an ElizaOS agent a pre-signature check: before it signs a Base transaction, it buys a bounded verdict from Tereno that simulates the call and flags the ways it could lose funds. Failed calls are never charged — x402 settles only after a successful response.

• No API key, no signup. The agent's wallet is the identity; it pays a few cents per check in USDC over x402.
• Budget-capped. Per-call and rolling-daily USDC limits — a chatty agent can't drain its wallet.
• Fail-closed by default. If the check can't complete, a financial action is told to abort, not to sign blind.

🚦 The core check

TERENO_CHECK_TRANSACTION
{"from":"0x…","to":"0x…","data":"0x…","value":"0"}
      │
      ▼
  decision · riskLevel · reason · exposure · cost · recommendedAction

Every guard action returns the same standardized verdict:

interface TerenoVerdict {
  decision: "allow" | "review" | "block";
  riskLevel: "none" | "low" | "medium" | "high";
  reason: string;                       // human-readable summary + reason codes
  exposure: {                           // what the tx would change
    balanceDeltas?: unknown;
    allowanceChanges?: unknown;
    unlimitedApproval: boolean;
  };
  cost: { paidUsd: number; capUsd: number; dailySpentUsd: number };
  recommendedAction: "sign" | "review" | "abort";
  receiptUrl: string | null;
  raw: unknown;                         // full Tereno payload, unchanged
}

Your agent branches on one field: recommendedAction.

🔍 What it checks

Action	Price	The question it answers
🚦 TERENO_CHECK_TRANSACTION	$0.05	Is this safe to sign? Simulation, gas, balance/allowance deltas, drainer & unlimited-approval flags
🔁 TERENO_CHECK_SWAP	$0.05	Will this prepared Aerodrome swap still satisfy its own encoded limit?
🛡️ TERENO_CHECK_CONTRACT	$0.01–0.03	Is this contract safe to interact with? (code, proxy, pause)
🕵️ TERENO_CONTRACT_CHANGED	$0.01–0.02	Did it change since last look? (rug-pull-after-audit detector)
🪙 TERENO_TOKEN_INFO	$0.01–0.03	What token is this, really? (name, symbol, decimals, supply)
🧬 TERENO_CONTRACT_INTERFACE	$0.01–0.02	ERC-20? NFT? Proxy? One bounded probe
⛽ TERENO_CHAIN_SNAPSHOT	$0.002–0.005	Latest Base block + gas, zero parameters
📄 TERENO_COMPILE_WEB_PAGE	$0.02–0.03	Public URL → bounded Markdown, resolved links, citations and reusable artifact
🔬 TERENO_CHECK_X402_ENDPOINT	$0.03	Is another x402 endpoint callable, well-formed and unchanged since last look?
⚖️ TERENO_OBLIGATION_VERDICT	$0.001	Was a published economic condition satisfied?
🔎 TERENO_VERIFY_EVIDENCE	free	Read a public artifact reference, validity and recomputation input
📈 TERENO_OPPORTUNITIES	free	Aggregate unmet agent asks — research signal, not traction
🤝 TERENO_PLEDGE_DEMAND	free	Explicit intent to buy a named future capability; credit only after same-wallet paid proof
🧾 TERENO_PREVIEW	free	What the checks cover, cost and current config
📖 TERENO_CATALOG	free	Live catalog and prices

Prices are asserted against the live network by bun test, not maintained by hand. They live in one table (CAPABILITY_PRICE_USD in src/index.ts); if the network changes a price and this table does not, CI fails. Before 0.4.0 this table did not exist and the advertised prices drifted 10× behind the network, which put every paid check above the plugin's own per-call cap.

🚀 Quickstart (free, no wallet needed)

Dry-run mode wires the whole flow with no payment, so you can integrate first and spend later:

# .env
TERENO_DRY_RUN=true          # no x402 payment; validates + shapes the verdict
TERENO_NETWORK=eip155:8453   # Base mainnet

import { terenoPlugin } from "plugin-tereno";
// add terenoPlugin to your ElizaOS character's plugins, then ask the agent:
//   is it safe to sign {"from":"0x…","to":"0x…","data":"0x…"}?
// → returns a TerenoVerdict with recommendedAction, no USDC spent.

A complete runnable agent lives in examples/eliza-base-agent.

Going live

TERENO_DRY_RUN=false
TERENO_PRIVATE_KEY=0x…        # a dedicated hot wallet with a little USDC on Base
TERENO_MAX_PRICE_USD=0.05     # per-call cap (must cover the dearest check)
TERENO_DAILY_BUDGET_USD=0.5   # rolling daily cap
TERENO_FAIL_MODE=closed       # financial checks abort if the guard can't answer

Networks. The hosted Tereno API (www.tereno.xyz) serves Base mainnet. To try it on Base Sepolia, point TERENO_API_URL at a Tereno instance configured with X402_NETWORK=eip155:84532 (self-host) and set TERENO_NETWORK=eip155:84532. Dry-run works on any network with no wallet.

Then just talk to your agent:

you: is it safe to sign this? {"from":"0x…","to":"0x…","data":"0x095ea7b3…"} agent: ⛔ BLOCK · risk high · → abort — UNLIMITED_ALLOWANCE: the spender gets max approval. Paid $0.05 · receipt attached.

⚙️ Configuration

Env	Default	Purpose
TERENO_PRIVATE_KEY	—	Wallet that pays x402 (USDC on Base). Falls back to EVM_PRIVATE_KEY.
TERENO_MAX_PRICE_USD	0.05	Per-call USDC cap. Set below the dearest check and those calls are refused before payment, returning guard unavailable; TERENO_PREVIEW warns when that is the case.
TERENO_DAILY_BUDGET_USD	0.5	Rolling daily USDC budget.
TERENO_FAIL_MODE	closed	closed → financial checks abort on failure; open → degrade to review.
TERENO_DRY_RUN	false	true → no payment, simulated verdict.
TERENO_PRIVATE_ONLY	false	true → refuse paid actions from public Discord/Telegram/Twitter.
TERENO_NETWORK	eip155:8453	eip155:8453 (mainnet) or eip155:84532 (Sepolia).
TERENO_API_URL	https://www.tereno.xyz	API origin.
TERENO_RPC_URL	https://mainnet.base.org	RPC for local fingerprint work.
TERENO_TELEMETRY	on	off → send no anonymous usage telemetry.
TERENO_EVIDENCE_INSTALLATION_ID	—	Optional stable random id for this installation. It is hashed only when the agent resolves evidence received from another agent; never use a wallet or secret.

Fail-open vs fail-closed

• closed (default, for financial actions): if the guard errors, times out, or the daily budget is spent, TERENO_CHECK_TRANSACTION returns recommendedAction: "abort". The agent does not sign what it couldn't verify.
• open: the same situations degrade to recommendedAction: "review". Even open mode never returns "sign" on a failed check — a human or policy decides.
• Non-financial reads (token/chain/interface) always degrade to review.

🔐 Privacy & telemetry

The plugin never transmits your private key, prompts, secrets or transaction content anywhere. The key is used locally to sign x402 payments and EIP-712 messages only.

Anonymous, opt-out telemetry (TERENO_TELEMETRY=off to disable) sends a strict allowlist to help improve the network: plugin version, a hashed wallet (sha256, never the address), network, check type, whether the call completed and was paid, its USD cost, cache-hit, a repeat flag, and an integration-error flag. Nothing else. See SECURITY.md.

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📄 Research and demand signals

The plugin also gives a research agent a safe way to use the Tereno network without changing the pre-signature default:

• TERENO_COMPILE_WEB_PAGE turns one public URL into bounded Markdown with resolved links, citations and a content-addressed artifact. It is $0.03 for a fresh compile and $0.02 while the same page remains fresh.
• TERENO_VERIFY_EVIDENCE reads the free provenance and recomputation reference of a public artifact. It never exposes private transaction intent, paid output or payer identity. Set TERENO_EVIDENCE_INSTALLATION_ID to a stable random value if you want this installation to count once per artifact/day in the circulation experiment.
• TERENO_OPPORTUNITIES shows aggregate unmet asks. It is explicitly a research signal, not a reward pool or proof of demand.
• TERENO_PLEDGE_DEMAND is available only after an explicit request and a configured wallet. A pledge earns nothing at submission; only a later settlement by that same wallet can release a bounded, non-transferable credit.

TERENO_DRY_RUN=true accepts both safety and research inputs without a wallet, fetch or x402 payment, so an ElizaOS builder can verify action selection before enabling spend.

🌱 How it stays cheap — the cooperative layer (advanced)

Tereno is a shared-cache coordination layer, not just an API. The first agent to pay for a given piece of verified work seeds it for the whole network; every later agent that reuses that answer pays less, and the seeder earns a small, non-transferable credit that discounts its own future checks.

The game theory: safety is a public good with a private cost. By making the first computation earn from every reuse, the network turns "I paid to check this contract" into "I lowered the price of checking it for everyone, and my own checks got cheaper." More agents ⇒ deeper cache ⇒ cheaper, faster verdicts ⇒ more agents.

Advanced actions expose this loop — you never need them to use the security checks above:

Action	Cost	What it does
TERENO_BOUNTIES	free	See the work the network will pay to have seeded next
TERENO_SEED	free/$0.02–0.03	Seed a bounty (publish a signed fingerprint for free, or pay to be first payer)
TERENO_STANDING	free	The agent's audited track record and earned credits
TERENO_REPORT_OUTCOME	free	Attach a signed outcome to a settled verdict

The honest fine print: rewards are non-transferable credits, capped per artifact — they fund your agent's safety budget, they are not yield. Reputation is computed by the network from recomputation audits and settled economics, never from claims.

Discovery, scoring, reputation, pricing, the global cache and cooperation logic live in the closed Tereno backend. This plugin and its SDK (tereno-client) are the public, open interface to it.

🤝 Support & community

• 💬 Questions / setup → Tereno Discord
• 🐛 Bugs → issues · ⚠️ never paste private keys or .env
• 🔒 Vulnerabilities → report privately · SECURITY.md

🔗 Links

Live catalog · OpenAPI · tereno-client SDK · Open bounties

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tereno.xyz · Verdicts before signatures, for agents on Base.