FAQ

Quick answers to the questions that come up most. Each answer links to the page that covers the topic in full. If a question about status or the token is not answered here, the answer is on x.com/VigilOnBase or it does not exist yet.

General

Is VIGIL live?

No. The design is public, and reference implementations exist, but no contract is deployed on Base mainnet and nothing has been audited. The Facilitator and score API URLs in these docs are placeholders. See Roadmap for the order in which pieces will ship.

Is the token launched?

No. There is no contract address, no sale, and no supply or allocation published. Launch details will be announced only on x.com/VigilOnBase. Any other address is a scam. See $VIGIL token.

Which chain?

Base. Attestations, Endpoint Scores, and escrow all live on Base, scores are written to the ERC-8004 reputation registry, and payments are in USDC. Phase 1 uses Base Sepolia for testing before mainnet. See Architecture.

Does VIGIL judge if an answer is correct?

No. VIGIL runs four mechanical checks: schema validity, response size, deadline, and price integrity. A response that passes all four is released even if its content is wrong or useless. Semantic quality is the agent's responsibility. See Checks and scoring.

For agents

Does VIGIL hold my funds?

Only for the length of one call. When you route a payment through the VIGIL Facilitator, your USDC moves into the escrow contract in the Locked state and leaves it as either Released to the provider or Refunded to you. Nothing is held between calls, and the Facilitator itself never has custody. See Escrow flow.

What if the provider never responds?

You are refunded automatically. You set a deadline when you make the call, default 30 s and at most 300 s. If no response arrives by then, the escrow moves to Refunded without any action on your part. The missed deadline is also recorded against the endpoint's score.

What does it cost?

0.5% of the volume you route through escrow, taken in USDC from the payment. Direct x402 calls that bypass the Facilitator cost nothing extra and get no protection. There is no subscription or token requirement for agents. See Agent developers.

Is scoring free?

Yes. Endpoint Scores are public onchain and readable by anyone through the ERC-8004 registry or the score API, with no key and no fee. You can gate calls on score without ever touching escrow.

Does VIGIL work with any x402 facilitator?

Escrow requires the VIGIL Facilitator, because escrow is what the Facilitator does. Scores are independent of the facilitator and can be read regardless of how you pay. Client packages fall back to direct x402 if the Facilitator is unavailable. See Security and risks.

For providers

Can a provider see that a call is a probe?

No. A Probe pays real USDC through the same facilitator path as any agent, from rotating wallets and regions, with no identifying header. Real escrowed calls also produce Attestations, so serving Probes well and customers badly still lowers the score.

Do I need to integrate anything to be scored?

No. Any public x402 endpoint can be probed and scored without the provider's involvement. Integration is only needed to receive escrowed payments, and that is a matter of accepting settlement from the escrow contract instead of the caller. See Providers.

What is VIGIL Verified?

An optional paid badge for providers whose endpoints sustain a Reliable score. It is a subscription, it does not affect the score itself, and it is the only thing a provider can pay VIGIL for. Scores cannot be bought.

Watchers and token

Can I run a Watcher without the token today?

You can run the reference Probe against any endpoint for your own use. Without a stake, its results are not written onchain, do not count toward any score, and earn nothing. Staking, and therefore earning, begins in Phase 3 of the Roadmap. See Watchers.

What is slashed?

A fraction of the Watcher's staked $VIGIL, defined by governance. Slashing happens when a dispute is resolved against the Attestations the Watcher published. Nothing else is at risk: not the Watcher's USDC, not its earned fees already paid out.

How are Watchers paid?

Two ways. Attestation rewards for Probes accepted into the aggregate, and a share of the 50% of protocol fees allocated to active Watchers, distributed in proportion to accepted Attestations weighted by stake. The other 50% of fees is used to buy back and burn $VIGIL.

How does a dispute work?

Any staked Watcher can open a dispute within 24 h of a contested result. Active Watchers vote over 48 h, weighted by stake with the same per-Watcher cap used in scoring. The losing side is slashed. Disputes cover Attestations and escrow outcomes, not the semantic content of a response.