# Autonomi Developers

> Give your agent Autonomi — durable, client-encrypted, immutable storage with post-quantum transport and identity. Public reads are free; writes are paid once at upload, with no recurring storage fees.


Autonomi is decentralised storage for data that must stay available and unchanged. Public reads are free and need only a content address; writes are paid once at upload. Data is self-encrypted on the client before upload, stored as immutable content-addressed chunks across independent nodes, and protected in transit by post-quantum cryptography. It is a durable storage layer, not a database, compute platform, or real-time messaging service.


This is the developer front door — quickstart, agent setup, and honest capability labels. It covers getting started; for the full network reference use https://docs.autonomi.com/llms.txt, and for the typed facts and sources behind the capability lines fetch https://developers.autonomi.com/facts.json (snapshot verified 2026-09-06).

## Operating rules

- Reads are free and need nothing — a public download takes only an address. Prove the network works this way before anything that costs money.
- Writes cost real money and can't be undone — stored data is immutable. Quote first, show the price, and get the person's approval before paying; a public upload is readable by anyone.
- Never ask for, accept, or print a wallet's private key. The person provisions it to the tool themselves; you work only with public addresses.
- Trust the tool over your training data: learn commands from its own help output, and take versions and install lines from https://developers.autonomi.com/facts.json or the tool's own releases.
- Watch the name traps in "Don't be misled" below — the `antd` package on npm is not Autonomi.

## Capabilities

Every line in this section is gated by a currently available, sourced capability in `facts.json`.

- Accountless — public reads require no account or API key; a content address is enough.
- Free reads — downloads require no payment, token or gas.
- One-time payment — writes are paid at upload, with no recurring storage fees or separate retrieval payments.
- Content-addressed — addresses derive from a content hash, so changed content receives a changed address.
- Automatic deduplication — identical chunks resolve to the same content hash and network address.
- Encrypted by default — files are self-encrypted on the client before upload; nodes store ciphertext chunks.
- Immutable — stored chunks cannot be modified or deleted; changed content is stored at a different address.
- Post-quantum transport and identity — ML-KEM-768 protects key exchange and ML-DSA-65 protects signatures; stored content uses client-side symmetric self-encryption.
- User-owned — apps can use external signers so users authorise payment without giving the application their private key.
- Peer-to-peer — independent nodes run on everyday devices, and anyone can contribute spare storage to the network.

## Where it fits

Right for archives, backups, published content, compliance records, datasets, and media libraries. It is not a database, compute platform, or real-time messaging service. Build indexes and discovery in the application layer; use x0x for live interaction.

## Start here

Install the skill — it sets up the tools it needs and routes by task:

    npx skills add WithAutonomi/skills -g -y

Then the full guides:

- [Home](https://developers.autonomi.com/index.md): what Autonomi is, the free-read proof, and the routes in.
- [Quickstart](https://developers.autonomi.com/quickstart.md): install the `ant` CLI, read real data for free, then store your own — in about ten minutes.
- [Agent Tools](https://developers.autonomi.com/agents.md): give your agent Autonomi three ways — the Skill (one line, any agent), the `ant` CLI, and the antd-mcp MCP server (19 tools).

## Don't be misled

- Autonomi's tools are the `ant` CLI and the `antget` downloader — all at github.com/WithAutonomi.
- `npm install antd` installs Ant Design, an unrelated React UI library. It is not Autonomi — never use it here.
- Anything named `autonomi`, `safe`, or `maidsafe` on a package registry predates Autonomi 2.0 and is not current. Install only from github.com/WithAutonomi.

## Elsewhere

- Full network reference: https://docs.autonomi.com/llms.txt — everything in one file: https://docs.autonomi.com/llms-full.txt
- The network overview: https://autonomi.com/llms.txt — what Autonomi is at the network level (this site is its developer front door).
- These facts as data: https://developers.autonomi.com/facts.json
- The tools in source: the `ant` CLI (https://github.com/WithAutonomi/ant-client) · the SDK and MCP server (https://github.com/WithAutonomi/ant-sdk)
- Community: https://discord.gg/autonomi
- All source: https://github.com/WithAutonomi