vc-ai-infra-scout
Source AI-infrastructure deals before the round. This skill runs a vetted
multi-step pipeline that discovers emerging companies and founders from
Hacker News, Product Hunt, the open web, Twitter/X, and LinkedIn, reads
recent pre-seed/seed fundraising announcements, distills the live thesis
of the funds leading those rounds, then enriches the top lead. You (the
agent) do the judgment work around the paid data: dedupe across sources, rank
by signal, flag teams that have not raised yet, and produce a shortlist
with links plus a suggested outreach note.
The pipeline is a SELAT skill: a declarative, vetted recipe of paid API
calls (no API keys, no signups) settled in USDC across multiple payment rails
— direct Circle x402, routed MPP, and routed x402 on Base. The selat CLI
resolves the vetted endpoints, auto-detects each step's rail, and prints a
per-rail receipt summary.
Cost — read this first
- Every step is a real paid API call in USDC from the user's own Circle
Agent Wallet (MPC self-custody — SELAT never holds keys or funds).
- Per-step caps are $0.02–$0.05; the full run is hard-capped at $0.40.
Caps are enforced by the runner; the live HTTP 402 quote is the price source
of truth.
- Always dry-run first (Step 1 — free, no wallet), show the user the real
quoted prices, and get their OK before any wallet setup or paid run.
- Never ask for, paste, or handle a private key. Wallet auth is handled by the
CLI's Circle integration.
Step 0 — get the CLI (free, no account)
If selat isn't on PATH yet, install it — one npm package, no signup, no
credentials:
selat --version || npm install -g @selat-ai/selat-cli
(macOS Skills UI users can also install it from this skill's dependency
prompt.) Installing the CLI creates nothing money-related — no wallet, no
account, no keys.
Step 1 — dry run first, before any wallet setup
Do this before creating a wallet or asking the user to fund anything.
The dry run probes every endpoint's live price and reachability for free — no
wallet, no funds, no account, no selat init:
selat skill install vc-ai-infra-scout
SELAT_ROUTER_URL=https://router.selat.ai \
selat skill verify ~/.config/selat/skills/vc-ai-infra-scout
(verify takes the installed skill's directory — $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/selat/skills/,
which defaults to the path above. The SELAT_ROUTER_URL prefix is only needed
before selat init has written config; it lets the routed steps quote their
price with zero setup.)
This prints each step's real quoted price and rail — the actual cost of a run,
from the live 402 challenges. Show the user these prices and get their OK
before going anywhere near wallet setup. If they don't want to proceed,
stop here; nothing has been spent and nothing has been created.
Step 2 — wallet setup (only after the user opts in)
selat init # creates the self-custody Circle Agent Wallet + config
selat fund # deposit USDC into Circle Gateway (user action)
selat doctor # verify wallet, router, and balance are ready
selat init is safe to re-run — it detects an existing wallet and asks
before changing anything.
Step 3 — run
selat skill run vc-ai-infra-scout \
--thesis "humanoid robotics foundation models" \
--twitterQuery "humanoid robotics founder" \
--fundraisingQuery "robotics startup raised seed pre-seed 2026" \
--investorQuery "" \
--domain
| Param | Required | What it steers |
|---|
thesis | yes | Sub-thesis keyword for HN / Product Hunt / web discovery and the founder shortlist. |
twitterQuery | no | Twitter/X keyword search for founder buzz. |
fundraisingQuery | no | Keyword query for recent raise announcements (Twitter/X + LinkedIn). Put recency cues in the query itself. |
investorQuery | no | Twitter/X search for the funds leading those rounds — set it from the fundraising results, then re-run just that lens if needed. |
domain | no | The most promising company's domain, for the enrichment step. |
Each step returns raw JSON. Your job afterward: dedupe companies across
sources, rank by traction/recency/founder signal, summarize the lead-fund
tweets into the live thesis, explicitly flag promising teams with no
announced round, and output a ranked shortlist with source links and a short
outreach note for the top pick.
Why this is safe to install
- The skill is a declarative JSON manifest — no executable code. Installing
it only ever writes data.
- Endpoints are https-only and pre-vetted; each publish is gated on a
machine-checked live verification receipt.
- Spend is capped per step and per run, and the runner surfaces the
wallet's spending policy at every money moment.
- Funds stay in the user's own wallet. No API keys, no platform balance,
no custodian.
Beyond this skill
SELAT is a general capability layer for paid agent actions. If the user's ask
doesn't fit this skill:
selat search "" # FREE federated discovery + ranking
selat skill list --available # other vetted multi-step skills
Docs: https://github.com/SELAT-AI/selat-skills