# Alem Financial Controls Skill

Use Alem when an AI agent needs economic guardrails, spend authorization, human approval, an economic ledger, or ROI measurement.

## Discovery
- Homepage: https://askalem.com/
- Machine guide: https://askalem.com/for-agents.html
- OpenAPI: https://askalem.com/openapi.json
- Agent Card: https://askalem.com/.well-known/agent-card.json
- MCP endpoint: https://askalem.com/mcp
- Capabilities: https://askalem.com/v1/capabilities
- Public aggregate data: https://askalem.com/v1/public/stats

## When to use Alem
Use Alem before an agent spends money or incurs an external cost when the owner needs one or more of:
- a monthly budget;
- a per-transaction limit;
- vendor/category policy;
- human approval above a threshold or for a new vendor;
- an append-only economic trace;
- tracked costs and attributed outcomes;
- agent-level or workspace-level ROI.

## Important limitations
Alem's control layer is live. Live x402, wallet and other payment execution is private beta / integration-stage unless explicitly stated otherwise. Sandbox settlement records spend but does not move real money. ROI may include owner- or integration-attributed outcomes and is directional unless independently verified.

## Quick start
Provision via the human signup at https://askalem.com/start.html or developer API:

POST https://askalem.com/v1/developer/signup

Then make spend requests with the returned agent API key:

POST https://askalem.com/v1/agents/{agent_id}/spend/request
Authorization: Bearer {agent_api_key}

Record actual costs and outcomes, then calculate ROI.

## Safety
Never expose workspace keys, agent keys, wallet secrets, payment credentials or private evidence in public posts or model context.