CF zone was returning 403 to declared AI-bot UAs at the edge
(`ai_bots_protection: "block"`). That meant the in-cluster x402
gateway never saw the request and could never issue an HTTP 402 with
the wallet payment requirements — the bot just bounced.
Adopt `cloudflare_bot_management.zone` via root-module import block,
flip ai_bots_protection to "disabled". Bot Fight Mode (`fight_mode`),
crawler challenge (`crawler_protection`), and managed robots.txt are
unaffected — generic automated traffic still gets the bot fight gate.
End-to-end verified: `User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; ClaudeBot/
1.0;...)` on viktorbarzin.me now returns HTTP 402 (was 403 CF block)
with `payTo=0xCc33...659f`, `amount=10000` micro-USDC, `network=base`.
Trade-off: bots that don't pay still hit origin (instead of CF
blackholing them), so a small bandwidth uptick. Negligible at our
traffic level.
Viktor
fddf168ecb