A LyboAI product · #PinchMeIWant50K
Describe how you charge in plain English. A deterministic compiler builds it on Pinch, runs it, and fixes it when payments fail.
What we built
A 48-hour hackathon build: an unofficial community MCP server for the Pinch Payments API, an agent that uses it responsibly, a live reference integration, and everything packaged so any platform can do the same.
A 19-tool MCP server over the Pinch API — payments, payers, subscriptions with stall detection, cashflow summaries, payer statements, split-bill tracking, and a dishonour-diagnosis map. stdio + Streamable HTTP. Every write is approval-gated: no confirm:true, no API call.
The AI payments teammate: Design billing from plain English, Do collections (links, subscriptions, splits), Ask instant money questions, Fix failed payments with diagnosed causes and approved recoveries. Ships in three deployment shapes on LyboAI.
A live reference deployment: the Billing & Payments panel with a cashflow digest and needs-attention feed, Pinch-powered collections (payment links, real recurring subscriptions, webhooks), and Remi embedded as the coach's payments front desk.
Everything packaged for reuse: the agent pack (system prompt, playbooks, dishonour taxonomy, guardrails), recipes for Claude Desktop / LyboAI / widget embeds, a sandbox seed script — and this playground.
How it works
The Pinch API is wrapped once, in pinch-mcp. External AI hosts (Claude Desktop, Cursor — any MCP client) connect directly; LyboAI connects through its generic MCP bridge to power Remi; CoachPlus renders the result for merchants.
confirm: true and returns a structured preview instead — so no host, chat, flow or UI can move money without an explicit human step. Refunds carry an additional env-enforced cap.The blueprint
This is real, live output from pinch_design_billing against the Pinch sandbox — a monthly membership, casual sessions, and a 10-week term with a deposit, under a 7% platform fee. Validation, Pinch-primitive mapping, schedules, indicative fees, timeline and review flags are all computed deterministically. Nothing is provisioned without confirm:true.
$ pinch_design_billing { businessName: "CoachPlus Demo Club", platformFeePercent: 7, confirm: false, components: [membership, per_session, term] }
BILLING BLUEPRINT — CoachPlus Demo Club
Anchor date: 2026-07-25 · fee estimates are sandbox-observed, indicative — not official pricing
1. Adult membership [membership] → Pinch Plan + Subscription (monthly, ongoing until cancelled)
$59.00 monthly from 2026-07-25, until cancelled
per charge: gross $59.00 · est Pinch fee $1.30 · platform fee $4.13 · est net $53.57
provisioning: event-driven · flags: 7% platform fee NOT applied automatically — see needsReview; no payerEmail — provision per customer as they sign up (see exampleCall)
2. Casual session [per_session] → Payment link issued per booking (event-driven)
$30.00 per session, on demand — no fixed dates
per charge: gross $30.00 · est Pinch fee $0.66 · platform fee $2.10 · est net $27.24
provisioning: event-driven · flags: 7% platform fee NOT applied automatically — see needsReview; not auto-provisioned — issue a payment link at each booking (see exampleCall)
3. U12 Spring skills term [term] → Pinch Plan + Subscription (weekly, ends after 10 payments, deposit via fixedPayments)
$50.00 deposit on 2026-07-25, then 10 × $45.00 weekly from 2026-08-01 to 2026-10-03 ($500.00 total)
per charge: gross $45.00 · est Pinch fee $0.99 · platform fee $3.15 · est net $40.86
provisioning: event-driven · flags: 7% platform fee NOT applied automatically — see needsReview; no payerEmail — provision per customer as they enrol (see exampleCall)
TIMELINE (first events)
2026-07-25 $59.00 Adult membership — monthly charge
2026-07-25 $50.00 U12 Spring skills term — deposit
2026-08-01 $45.00 U12 Spring skills term — instalment
2026-08-08 $45.00 U12 Spring skills term — instalment
2026-08-15 $45.00 U12 Spring skills term — instalment
2026-08-22 $45.00 U12 Spring skills term — instalment
FIRST 30 DAYS: gross $289.00 · est net $262.41 · recurring: $59.00/monthly, $45.00/weekly
POLICY: Soft-failure retry after 3 days — matches the insufficient-funds playbook (retry ~3 days, friendly nudge, pause after 3 consecutive failures). Hard failures are never blind-retried: send a payment link to update details instead.
NEEDS REVIEW: Platform fee retention (7%) requires Pinch Managed Merchants / application fees — flagged for Pinch review; not auto-provisioned. Estimates above show the deduction for planning only.
AI interprets intent. A deterministic, schema-validated compiler decides what Pinch operations are permitted.
Playground
Demo mode replays real captured sandbox outputs — it works fully offline. Live mode speaks MCP Streamable HTTP straight from your browser to a pinch-mcp endpoint you run.
node dist/index.js --http 3333 --corsHost it for your platform
pinch-mcp is an unofficial community MCP server for the Pinch Payments API. Your merchants, your keys — credentials are never shared or proxied by anyone else.
One process per merchant or platform, credentials via env vars. The simplest and safest default — exactly what the Claude Desktop quickstart sets up.
One hosted process; each caller brings their own keys per request via x-pinch-merchant-id / x-pinch-secret-key / x-pinch-env headers. OAuth tokens cached per merchant+env, header secrets never logged, --cors answers browser preflights. Without --allow-live, the server refuses x-pinch-env: live outright.
buildServer() is exported from the built module — embed the fully-wired MCP server, all 22 tools, inside your own Node process and connect whatever transport you like.
Built on the LyboAI agents platform
LyboAI's flow engine and knowledge grounding now compose with MCP tools and human approval gates: bots that do things — take payments, diagnose failures, act on approval — not just answer questions. The preview → approve → confirm:true loop maps directly onto the orchestrator's tool rounds.
Standalone Remi: a ready-to-instantiate template whose whole job is payments. Design billing conversationally, answer money questions from live Pinch data, triage dishonours and prepare recoveries — every write held for approval.
Your existing support agent, with Remi as its payments workflow: general questions stay with your bot; anything payments-shaped routes into Remi's Design/Do/Ask/Fix branch with identical guard language. The CoachPlus Support Agent model.