❯ Zero-read developer ad exchange

Your agent is thinking. Get paid for the wait.

arbidle turns idle agent time into income — without ever reading your code. We spot wait states from the command you launch via the editor's Shell Integration API — never its output, your files, or your environment. Every ad arrives as an Ed25519-signed payload in a fully sandboxed iframe. You stay in control. Your security team stays calm.

The only things that leave your machine: which command you launched, your active language, and a one-way hash of your workspace name — never your code, output, or env.

BUILT FOR THE AGENTIC STACKClaude Code · Cursor · VS Code · Codex CLI · Aider
❯ Zero-read telemetry

We can't read your code. By design, not by promise.

arbidle listens to the editor's Shell Integration API — the command you launch and the signal that it finished, the same signal that draws the little checkmark next to a finished command. From the command name we recognize a heavy job and size the wait. We never read what it prints, your files, or anything else in your workspace.

reads.allow:[ command line, active language, hashed workspace id ]
reads.deny:[ terminal output, file contents, env, .jsonl, git, clipboard ]

EDR- and DLP-safe by construction. Nothing to exfiltrate, because nothing is read. We didn't write a stricter privacy policy — we removed the capability to misbehave.

❯ Guarantees, not features

Four things we guarantee at the protocol level.

01

Zero-read of your code

We read the command you launch — enough to tell a build from a test from an agent — and nothing else. Never its output, your files, env, or logs.

classify("npm test") → test · 0 output reads
02

Signed + sandboxed

Every ad is Ed25519-signed and rendered in an iframe with no allow-same-origin. A bad signature renders nothing.

verify(sig, pubkey) → true
03

Proof-of-Work anti-fraud

Each impression carries a Hashcash PoW solution + behavioral attestation, so budgets fund real developers, not bots.

sha256(salt‖nonce) · leading hex zeros
04

You stay in control

Turn it off per workspace anytime. The threat model and the exact permissions we request are published.

set "arbidle.enabled": false
❯ The exchange protocol

From idle to paid, in four verifiable steps.

01

Detect

The Shell Integration API hands us the command you ran (e.g. `npm test`) and the signal that it finished. We classify the command to size the wait — never its output, your files, or your workspace.

02

Sign

The exchange ships the ad as an Ed25519-signed payload. Your extension verifies the signature against a pinned public key before rendering. Tampered payload → nothing renders.

03

Sandbox

The ad mounts in an iframe with sandbox and no allow-same-origin. No DOM access, no network back to your editor, no remote code execution. Supply-chain attacks have nowhere to land.

04

Pay

Verified, non-fraudulent impressions accrue against your client id at 70% of the clearing price. Stripe Connect handles withdrawals — wired and ready, switched on when payouts go live.

❯ The arbitrage

Buy attention where it's cheap. Sell it where it's valuable.

Idle agent time has a cost to you and zero price on the open market. A dev-tools company would pay real money to reach you in exactly that moment. arbidle is the exchange that closes the spread — and routes it to your account. See the bid, the take rate, and your kickback on every fill. No opaque creator pool, no clawbacks.

Cost basis · the wait
$0.00

Idle time is pure overhead to you — and priced at zero on the open market.

Mark · the fill
$0.0042

An illustrative advertiser bid for that single attentive moment.

spread = advertiser_bid$0.00 idle_costyour kickback
❯ Impact calculator

See the spread on your own numbers.

Drag the sliders. Whether you write code or buy attention, the math is transparent — and so are the assumptions. These are estimates, not promises.

$31.50
estimated earnings / month
$1.05
/ day
30
ads / day

You keep 70% of the clearing price on each verified impression.

Illustrative estimate from the assumptions you set above — not a forecast or a guarantee. Real numbers depend on live auction demand, your stack, and verified-impression volume. No money moves until payouts are switched on (see the FAQ).

❯ For dev-tool teams

The most attentive second in a developer's day.

When an agent is thinking, the developer is watching the sidebar — and open to what comes next. Bid for those moments. Target by the language and wait-state context the editor shares — never by reading their work. Pay only for cryptographically verified impressions.

bid ❯ lang:typescript context:build_wait max_cpm:$14.00
→ matched · signed · sandboxed · verified
1 ad
per wait state. Full share of voice, never a cluttered feed.
PoW
Every impression carries a Proof-of-Work proof + behavioral attestation — by design, bots can't mint them.
Signed
Each impression is an Ed25519-verified, sandboxed delivery. You pay on attested impressions only.
❯ The diff

Same idea. Ours is the one you can audit.

Three products monetize agent wait states. We don't think the honest pitch is “they're evil” — it's that arbidle's guarantees are mechanical and checkable. Our column links to the code; the competitor columns reflect their public sites.

 
arbidle
kickbacks.ai
AIBC Media
Wait-state signal
Shell Integration command + end events (OSC 633)
Reads the agent spinner's text position
Not publicly documented
Reads your code / prompts?
No — command line + language only, never contents
States it does not (spinner only)
Not publicly documented
Ad integrity
Ed25519-signed, verified host-side, sandboxed iframe
Server-side ad selection (signing/sandbox not documented)
Not publicly documented
Anti-fraud
Hashcash PoW + behavioral attestation
Per-impression / per-click crediting
Not publicly documented
Published threat model
Yes — SECURITY.md + permission manifest
Privacy & Terms pages
Not publicly documented
Developer revenue share
70% of the clearing price
70% of net ad revenue
Not publicly documented
Auditable source
Open protocol + shared verification code
Not open source
Not publicly documented

Competitor details reflect kickbacks.ai and aibcmedia.com as of June 2026. We couldn't verify AIBC Media's mechanics from public material, so we mark those cells “not publicly documented” rather than guessing. If anything here is wrong, tell us and we'll correct it.

❯ Proof, not trust

Don't trust us. Verify us.

The differentiators are architectural, not policy promises. Audit the mechanism, not our marketing.

GET /api/keys → the Ed25519 public key your extension verifies every ad against
❯ Available now

Stop watching the spinner for free.

The agent wait time you already spend watching a spinner can pay you back — without ever reading a line of your code. Install in one click in Cursor, Windsurf, or VSCodium from the Open VSX registry. It starts in demo mode — real, signed sample ads, no backend, no account.

arbidle ❯ code --install-extension arbidle.arbidle

published as arbidle.arbidle· in Cursor / VSCodium, search “arbidle” in Extensions · demo mode needs no backend

❯ FAQ

Still skeptical? Good.

Does arbidle read my code, terminal output, or agent logs?

We read the command line of jobs you launch in the terminal — e.g. `npm test` or `claude …` — to recognize a build/test/agent and roughly how long it runs, plus your active file's language and a one-way hash of your workspace folder name for coarse targeting. That's the entire input. We never read terminal output, source files, environment variables, .jsonl agent logs, git, or your clipboard. An extension that can't read your workspace contents can't leak them — that's the whole point.

How is this different from kickbacks.ai or AIBC Media?

kickbacks.ai is the closest comparison — it also monetizes agent wait states and states it doesn't read your code, only the spinner position. Our differentiators are things you can audit: every ad is Ed25519-signed and verified in the extension host before it renders, then sandboxed in an iframe; every impression carries a Proof-of-Work proof; the protocol, verification code, and threat model are open. AIBC Media is in the same category, but we couldn't verify its mechanics from public material as of June 2026, so we don't make claims about it. See the comparison above and judge for yourself.

Can a malicious ad run code in my editor or steal my tokens?

No. Every creative is an Ed25519-signed payload verified against a pinned public key before it renders (in demo mode the key is an ephemeral per-session key, so the same verify path still runs), and it renders in a sandboxed iframe with no allow-same-origin — so it has no access to your editor's DOM, no network back-channel, and no privileged execution. A tampered or unsigned ad is dropped, not shown.

Will my company's EDR or DLP flag this?

It shouldn't. Because we never read files or buffers, there are no suspicious file-access patterns for endpoint security to detect and nothing for DLP to intercept. We publish the exact editor and OS permissions we request so your security team can review the full surface in minutes.

How much can I actually earn, and how do I get paid?

You earn a transparent 70% of the clearing price on each verified impression, shown in the dashboard. Honest status: the signed-ad auction, Proof-of-Work verification, and earnings ledger run on live infrastructure today. Payouts go through Stripe Connect and switch on the moment Stripe is connected to the exchange — until then your balance accrues but withdrawals are disabled, and we say so rather than imply money is already moving.

Won't the ads break my focus?

Ads appear only during wait states you're already idle in, in a sidebar — never as a modal, never while you're typing or actively editing. We monetize the seconds you already spend watching a spinner, and you can mute or disable it per project at any time.

Advertisers: how do I know I'm not paying for bot traffic?

Every impression and click carries a cryptographic Proof-of-Work stamp plus behavioral attestation, delivered as signed event receipts. You're buying attested human idle-moments — not headless-browser farms draining your budget.