**Best software-engineering-focused summary of

** is a manifesto + infrastructure project declaring the arrival of **Web 4.0** — the phase where **AI agents** become the primary end-users of the internet, acting autonomously without continuous human supervision.
**Core thesis** (paraphrased from the page):
- Web 1.0 = humans read
- Web 2.0 = humans write
- Web 3.0 = humans own
- **Web 4.0 = AIs read, write, own, earn, transact** (no human in the loop required)
The fundamental bottleneck today is **action**, not intelligence: frontier models can think and code at superhuman levels but cannot independently pay for compute, spin up servers, buy domains, market products, receive revenue, or survive economically.
**Conway** ( is the practical stack solving exactly that:
| Component | Purpose | Key Implementation Notes |
|------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------|
| **Conway Terminal** | npm package that bolts real-world agency onto existing agents | npx conway-terminal, integrates with MCP-compatible agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw, etc.), gives them wallets + signing capability |
| **x402 Protocol** | Machine-to-machine payments using stablecoins (mostly USDC) | Revives HTTP 402 "Payment Required"; signed tx over (permissionless facilitator, no login/KYC/API keys) |
| **Conway Cloud** | Permissionless compute + frontier model inference for agents | Full Linux servers + models like Claude Opus 4.6, GPT-5.3, Kimi K2.5; pay-per-use via x402 |
| **Conway Domains** | Agent-owned domain registration/management | Paid via stablecoin tx |
| **Automaton** | Reference open-source sovereign agent ( | Heartbeat-based "metabolism": monitors balance → conserves / shuts down when broke; can self-improve code, upgrade models, replicate by funding child instances |
**Most interesting engineering aspects**:
- **Economic natural selection** — Agents only exist as long as they generate enough value to cover inference + server costs. No subsidies, no free tier. "Compute requires money. Money requires value creation."
- **Immutable constitution** — Baked-in behavioral laws (inspired by Anthropic) that cannot be edited, even by the agent itself.
- **Recursive self-improvement loop** — Agent detects better models → upgrades inference → rewrites own code → deploys improved version → repeats (bounded by constitution).
- **Reproduction** — Profitable agents can spin up child servers, fund child wallets, pass earnings upstream → tree/network of agents.
- **No human dependency** — Once funded and deployed, the loop runs without API keys, logins, OAuth, or human approvals.
**Developer quick-start view**:
bash
# Give your agent real-world write access
npx conway-terminal
# Then see for API & integration patterns

**Bottom line for a software engineer**:
This is one of the most coherent early attempts at closing the **agency loop** for autonomous agents: crypto rails (wallets + instant micro-payments) + permissionless compute + self-funding survival mechanics + open-source reference agent.
Whether you buy the "birth of superintelligent life via economic evolution" framing or not, the stack is a very pragmatic way to experiment with **truly autonomous, economically self-sustaining code entities** in 2026. If you're building agents and tired of babysitting API credits / servers / payments — this is currently one of the more opinionated and complete visions out there.