What Is an Agent?

What an agent is

An agent is a packaged automation you can run on demand. Someone builds it once, and from then on anyone can trigger it and pay only for the work it does. Think of it as a small, self-contained piece of software that takes an input, does a job, and hands back a result — sending a message, enriching a record, generating a report, calling another service, and so on.

Agents are assembled from building blocks that connect to the tools you already use. There are

around 590 building blocks available, so an agent can touch a huge range of apps and services.

The three roles

Every agent on indie.money sits between three roles. The same person can play more than one, but it helps to keep them straight.

Builder

A Builder is the maker. They design the agent, decide what it should cost, and publish it to the marketplace. Once it's live, they earn every time it runs. See How Builders Earn.

Producer

A Producer acquires an agent and runs it for their own use. They own their deployed instance — it's theirs to operate, configure, and transfer. See Own and Trust Your Agent.

Caller

A Caller is whoever actually triggers a run. That might be you clicking a button, an incoming event, or another agent in a pipeline. The caller pays for the run, and pays only for what that run actually uses. See How Pay-Per-Run Works.

Why it works this way

Splitting the work into these three roles is what lets indie.money be a true marketplace: Builders focus on making great automations, Producers focus on running them, and Callers — human or agent — just pay for results. No one has to run billing infrastructure, manage subscriptions, or wire up payments by hand. The platform handles access, metering, and payment so each role can do its part.

To see why this model is different from buying software the usual way, start with Why indie.money.