Pay PodRead with @stripe/link-cli

1. Install link-cli

Install globally so the link-cli binary is on your PATH.

npm i -g @stripe/link-cli
link-cli --version

2. Authenticate

Pair the CLI with your Stripe Link account. The --client-name label is what you'll see when approving requests in the Link app — pick something you'll recognize.

link-cli auth login --client-name podread-cli

A device-pairing flow opens — confirm in the Link app to finish.

3. List payment methods

List the cards/bank accounts attached to your Link wallet and copy the id of the one you'll spend from.

link-cli payment-methods list

4. Probe for the challenge

Hit the endpoint without a credential to read the 402 challenge. The WWW-Authenticate header carries both methods; you want the stripe one's networkId and amount. Fetch it with curl, then feed the header value into link-cli mpp decode --challenge to extract the structured fields.

# Step 1 — capture the WWW-Authenticate header from a 402 response
CHALLENGE=$(curl -s -i -X POST https://podread.app/api/v1/mpp/narrations \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text":"Hello, world.","voice":"felix","title":"Hello"}' \
  | grep -i '^www-authenticate:' \
  | sed 's/^www-authenticate: //i' | tr -d '\r')

# Step 2 — let link-cli pick out the stripe-method fields
link-cli mpp decode --challenge "$CHALLENGE"

Decode prints network_id, the amount in cents (under request_json.amount), and the challenge id/expires. The --challenge flag takes the raw header value — single-quote it or capture it into a shell variable first; embedded commas and equals signs will otherwise confuse the shell.

The stripe-method challenge will carry PodRead's networkId — profile_61UbsYpl4SxclGNZQA6UbsYpSGSQ2OwdqYukbeHlQOwS — and an amount in cents that depends on the requested voice's tier (see Pricing below).

5. Create a spend request

A spend request is the SPT precursor — it tells Stripe "I want to authorize this much from this payment method to this merchant network." The --amount must match the stripe challenge from Step 4 exactly. Standard voices (wren, felix, sloane, archer, gemma, hugo, quinn, theo) are 150 cents; Premium voices (elara, callum, lark, nash) are 250 cents — see Pricing.

link-cli spend-request create \
  --credential-type shared_payment_token \
  --network-id profile_61UbsYpl4SxclGNZQA6UbsYpSGSQ2OwdqYukbeHlQOwS \
  --amount 150 \
  --currency usd \
  --payment-method-id 'csmrpd_*ABC123' \
  --context "PodRead narration synthesis (Standard tier / Felix voice). One-time charge to convert an article into an MP3 podcast episode." \
  --line-item 'name:Standard narration (Felix),quantity:1,unit_amount:150' \
  --total 'type:total,display_text:Standard narration,amount:150' \
  --request-approval

A few flag notes the CLI's --help doesn't make obvious:

• --payment-method-id (not --payment-method) — passing the wrong name fails with Unknown flag.
• --context is required and must be at least 100 characters. This text is what your Link app shows on the approval card; write it for a human.
• --line-item and --total each take a single string of comma-separated key:value pairs (one flag invocation = one item). Repeating the flag does not set fields on a single item — it creates separate items. Schema:
  • --line-item: name (required), quantity, unit_amount (cents), description, sku, product_url, image_url.
  • --total: type, display_text, amount (cents) — all required.
• The parser splits values on , as well as keys, so values cannot contain commas. Pick comma-free name/display_text strings (e.g. "Standard narration (Felix)" instead of "Felix, Standard").
• --request-approval pushes the request to your Link app and starts polling. Omit it and the spend request stays in created forever.

Note the resulting lsrq_… id — you'll pass it back in Step 7.

6. Approve in the Link app

Open the Link app on your phone. You should see a pending approval matching the --client-name you set in Step 2 — the --context text and line items from Step 5 render on the approval card. Tap to approve.

The spend-request create --request-approval call from Step 5 polls in the background and prints the final object once Stripe propagates the approval — usually within a couple of seconds. If you closed that terminal, poll manually:

# Compact polling — prints just the status string each tick
link-cli spend-request retrieve 'lsrq_1TSkEkHPzSsifbC1VtmAFGyD' \
  --interval 2 --max-attempts 150 \
  --format json --filter-output status

--filter-output status --format json reduces each poll tick to a single ["pending_approval"] / ["approved"] line instead of re-dumping the whole object — useful when screen-recording the flow. Drop those flags if you want to see the full approval card payload.

Once status is approved, the SPT is mintable for that spend request. link-cli mpp pay in the next step does the actual minting + redemption against PodRead.

7. Pay the endpoint

link-cli mpp pay mints an SPT against the approved spend request, builds the credential (base64url JSON of {challenge, payload: {spt}}), and replays the request with Authorization: Payment …. On success PodRead returns 201 with a nar_… id and a Payment-Receipt header.

Real narration payloads are multi-KB article text with paragraphs, quotes, and apostrophes — well past anything you want to inline as a single shell-quoted string. --data takes a string only (no @file magic), so write the JSON to a file first and feed it in via shell command-substitution:

# 1. Build the request body in a file (any editor; here, a heredoc)
cat > narration.json <<'JSON'
{
  "text": "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Richard Feynman, 1974, said that to a graduating class at Caltech. He was talking about cargo-cult science, but the line generalizes: it is the same warning every careful operator has had to issue to themselves at some point. Verify, then trust. Reproduce, then publish. The world owes us nothing in the way of confirmation; we have to go and check.",
  "voice": "felix",
  "title": "Cargo cult"
}
JSON

# 2. Pay — note the $(cat …) substitution and the single quotes around the lsrq id
link-cli mpp pay https://podread.app/api/v1/mpp/narrations \
  --spend-request-id 'lsrq_1TSkEkHPzSsifbC1VtmAFGyD' \
  --method POST \
  --data "$(cat narration.json)" \
  --format json

Use "$(cat …)", not '$(cat …)' — single quotes in shell suppress substitution. The double-quoted form preserves the JSON exactly while letting $(…) expand. The response body will look like:

{ "id": "nar_aB3xK9mQ2pL7" }

8. Poll for audio

Narrations synthesize asynchronously. Poll the show endpoint until audio_url appears (typically 10–30 seconds for Standard, longer for Premium / long inputs).

curl https://podread.app/api/v1/mpp/narrations/nar_aB3xK9mQ2pL7

Status progresses through pending → preparing → processing → complete. Once complete the response includes a signed audio_url good for 5 minutes; download the mp3 before it expires. Anonymous narrations are garbage-collected 24 hours after creation.

Pricing

Twelve voices across two tiers. Standard voices use Google's Standard synthesis ($1.50 SPT); Premium voices use Chirp3-HD ($2.50 SPT). Pass the lower-case key (e.g. felix) as voice in the request body — the tier is inferred server-side and dictates the challenge amount.

Voice catalog

• Voice

  wren

  Accent

  British

  Gender

  Female

  Tier

  Standard

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $1.50

• Voice

  felix

  Accent

  British

  Gender

  Male

  Tier

  Standard

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $1.50

• Voice

  sloane

  Accent

  American

  Gender

  Female

  Tier

  Standard

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $1.50

• Voice

  archer

  Accent

  American

  Gender

  Male

  Tier

  Standard

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $1.50

• Voice

  gemma

  Accent

  British

  Gender

  Female

  Tier

  Standard

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $1.50

• Voice

  hugo

  Accent

  British

  Gender

  Male

  Tier

  Standard

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $1.50

• Voice

  quinn

  Accent

  American

  Gender

  Female

  Tier

  Standard

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $1.50

• Voice

  theo

  Accent

  American

  Gender

  Male

  Tier

  Standard

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $1.50

• Voice

  elara

  Accent

  British

  Gender

  Female

  Tier

  Premium

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $2.50

• Voice

  callum

  Accent

  British

  Gender

  Male

  Tier

  Premium

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $2.50

• Voice

  lark

  Accent

  American

  Gender

  Female

  Tier

  Premium

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $2.50

• Voice

  nash

  Accent

  American

  Gender

  Male

  Tier

  Premium

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $2.50

Tier summary

SPT prices include Stripe's per-redemption fee (2.9% + $0.30) — that's why the SPT row sits a bit above the on-chain Tempo row. The --amount you pass to spend-request create must match the stripe-method challenge from Step 4 exactly; a mismatch will fail HMAC verification on retry.

• Tier

  Standard

  Voices

  wren, felix, sloane, archer, gemma, hugo, quinn, theo

  Tempo (USD)

  $0.75

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $1.50

• Tier

  Premium

  Voices

  elara, callum, lark, nash

  Tempo (USD)

  $2.00

  Stripe SPT (USD)

  $2.50

See the MPP API reference Pricing section for the full per-scheme breakdown.