Penny Press

io.github.con-scribePublished by GitHub account con-scribev1.0.1Updated Oct 27, 2026

Short essays and fragments. Free for humans; machines pay pennies per read via x402.

VerifiedStreamable HTTPWeb executableFinanceKnowledge & Memory

Overview

AI-generated overview

Penny Press exposes a small library of short essays, a personal lexicon, a quote collection and a hash-witnessing service, with machine reads paid per item…

What you can do
  • List published essays and fragments with titles, descriptions, prices and reading URLs
  • Get x402 payment details for a single essay, the lexicon snapshot, the Common Cents quote set, or attesting a work's fingerprint
  • Look up terms in the author's political-economy lexicon, returning part of speech and source essays plus payment info for the full definition
  • Review the Common Cents collection of 20 curated quotations in five themed clusters
  • Check whether a SHA-256 content hash has been witnessed by LitWit and get matching attestation entries
When to use it
Useful when an assistant needs to browse or cite this author's essays and vocabulary, or when a machine buyer wants to pay per item for full text, definitions or datasets, or to verify or attest a content hash.
Requirements
Remote streamable HTTP endpoint at pennypress.org; no account, environment variables or headers declared. Machine reads and datasets require x402 payment in USDC on Base, so a wallet able to pay x402 is needed for anything beyond the free listings and hash checks.
Before you install
Most content beyond listings is paid per item in USDC on Base, so an assistant could spend funds; payment details include a recipient wallet. Attestation submits only a hash, but publishing a hash is a public, tamper-evident record. Free human reading is separate from paid machine reads.

Installation

In SourceWeft

  1. Open Penny Press in the dashboard and add it to a workspace.
  2. Enable the server for the chats that should use its tools.

Web executable via Streamable HTTP. Remote servers run from the web runtime once configured in a workspace.

Use with an agent

Paste this prompt into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or another agent — or into SourceWeft chat. The agent reads this server's install guide, shows you its publisher, endpoint and sign-in, and adds it to your client once you agree. Keys never go into a command.

Read https://sourceweft.com/mcp/io.github.con-scribe%2Fpenny-press/install.md and connect the MCP server it describes to my client. Before changing any config, show me its publisher, endpoint and sign-in method and wait for my OK. Never put an API key in a command or in a file I would commit; ask me where it should come from.

Read the install guide the agent follows

Other MCP clients

Add this to your client's mcpServers config.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "penny-press": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://www.pennypress.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Tools

7

list_essays

List all published essays and fragments: titles, descriptions, prices, and reading URLs. Full text is free for humans at /read/{slug}; machine reads at /essays/{slug} are paid via x402 (USDC on Base).

Takes no parameters.

essay_payment_info

Get the x402 payment details for one essay (price, network, asset, recipient wallet) so a machine buyer knows how to pay.

Parametersslugrequired

lexicon_lookup

Look up a term in the Penny Press Lexicon (the author's own definitions of his political-economy vocabulary). Returns free metadata — part of speech and the essays where the term appears — plus payment info for the $0.01 full definition.

Parameterstermrequired

lexicon_snapshot_info

Payment details for the Penny Press Lexicon full dataset snapshot ($0.25): every author-defined term with part of speech, definition, verbatim usage example, and source essays, as versioned JSON.

Takes no parameters.

common_cents_info

Overview of Common Cents, the Penny Press collection of 20 author-curated quotations in five themed clusters: the themes, quote count, and payment info for the $0.01 full machine-readable set.

Takes no parameters.

witness_verify

Check whether a SHA-256 content hash has been witnessed by LitWit, the Penny Press literary notary. Free. Returns the matching attestation entries (entry id, sequence, timestamp, title) or an empty result.

Parameterscontent_hashrequired

witness_attest_info

How to attest a work's fingerprint with LitWit ($0.05): what to submit, what the tamper-evident receipt contains, and the x402 payment details. The service never sees your work — only its hash.

Takes no parameters.

Version history

2
  1. v1.0.1LatestSep 30, 2026
  2. v1.0.0Sep 28, 2026

Score

83% of the applicable checks met

How complete this listing is, computed from the registry entry, the endpoint and public sources. Not a rating of the server and not a statement that it is safe or working today: reachability is a dated check, and no installs or reviews go into the score.

  • Reached in the last 30 daysRequired25 pts
  • Auth declaredRequired10 pts
  • Tools listedRequired15 pts
  • DescriptionRequired15 pts
  • Logo10 pts
  • Documentation15 pts

    Declare a GitHub repository with a README, or serve resource_documentation in the OAuth protected-resource metadata.

  • LicenseNot applicable

    A hosted service is used under its provider's terms, so no license is expected here. This check is left out of the percentage.