No direct way to find a wallet that can pay an invoice #34

What happened

The goal was "pay this invoice" (a 1 sat signet lntbs BOLT11). No profile or wallet was
given. To find a wallet, the agent had to:

1. organizations list --json returned many organizations.
2. wallets list --org ORG --json for each organization, in a shell loop, with python3
   to flatten names, networks, and balances.
3. A second python3 pass read the balances[].available objects.

The loop found two wallets, both in one organization. The BTC wallet showed
{"amount": N, "negative": true}, so its balance was negative and it could not pay.
The other was a USD wallet (see 2026-10-14-sub-cent-invoice-from-usd-wallet). Learning
that no wallet could pay a 1 sat invoice took roughly ten tool calls.

Why it was confusing

• wallets list works on one organization at a time. No command lists the wallets
  across every organization that a login can see.
• No command answers "which wallet can pay this invoice?" The network from the invoice
  prefix (lntbs is signet or mutinynet), the currency, and a spendable balance all
  matter.
• A negative balance is a positive amount with negative: true. A quick read of the
  amount can show a funded wallet.
• In non-interactive use, the wallet picker on feat/cli-interactive-pickers does not
  help.
• Cheapest fixes, from smallest: show signed balances in table output; add
  wallets list --all-orgs; give payments send --invoice without --wallet an error
  that lists suitable wallets, or says that none can pay and why.

Provenance

• Found 2026-10-14 during a Claude Code session ("pay this invoice").
• Branch feat/cli-human-output, commit a060712, voltage 0.1.0 (a060712).
• Deployment: staging, a login that sees many organizations, only one of which has wallets.

Status on other branches

• feat/cli-interactive-pickers prompts for a missing organization, environment, or
  wallet on a terminal. It does not help agents and does not filter by ability to pay.
• feat/cli-error-hints names the next command for missing scope. It does not search
  across organizations.

Reproduction

repro.sh needs a browser login (voltage login --account me --credential-store file).
It shows the per-organization loop that an agent must write.

# docs/issues/2026-10-14-find-a-wallet-that-can-pay/repro.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
PIN=a060712
source "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/docs/issues/lib.sh"
build
ACCOUNT=${ACCOUNT:-me}
# Today this needs a loop and a JSON parser; a fix makes it one voltage command.
orgs=$(voltage organizations list --account "$ACCOUNT" --json \
  | python3 -c 'import json,sys; [print(o["id"]) for o in json.load(sys.stdin)["data"]]')
for org in $orgs; do
  voltage wallets list --account "$ACCOUNT" --org "$org" --json 2>/dev/null | python3 -c '
import json, sys
for w in json.load(sys.stdin).get("data") or []:
    for b in w["balances"]:
        a = b["available"]
        print(sys.argv[1], w["id"], w["network"], b["currency"], ("-" if a["negative"] else "") + str(a["amount"]), a["unit"])
' "$org" || true
done

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Shared setup for issue reproductions. Source it from a repro.sh after setting PIN.
set -euo pipefail
root=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)
cd "$root"
head=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)
if [ "${PIN:-}" != "" ] && [ "$head" != "$PIN" ]; then
  echo "note: HEAD is $head; the issue was found at $PIN (git switch --detach $PIN to match)" >&2
fi
voltage() { "$root/scripts/voltage-staging" "$@"; }
need() { for v in "$@"; do [ -n "${!v:-}" ] || { echo "set $v first" >&2; exit 64; }; done; }
build() { "$root/scripts/voltage-staging" --build >/dev/null 2>&1; }
# Run a command, print its exit code, and never stop the script.
try() { echo "\$ voltage $*" >&2; set +e; voltage "$@"; echo "exit=$?" >&2; set -e; }

Run with nix develop --command ./docs/issues/2026-10-14-find-a-wallet-that-can-pay/repro.sh (see the agent friction log in AGENTS.md, #33).

Progress on master (b25c05d, 2026-10-20)

Done:

• Table output shows a negative balance with a - sign (src/output/human.rs). feat(cli): fit human tables to the terminal and scrub all API text #15
• On a terminal, a payment without --wallet offers a wallet picker. feat(cli): pick a missing organization, environment, or wallet #22
• A payment without --currency takes its wallet's currency. feat(cli): default a payment's currency to its wallet's, and units to base units #55

Left:

• List wallets across every organization a login can see, for example wallets list --all-orgs.
• Find a wallet that can pay a given invoice, from its network, currency, and spendable balance.
• Off a terminal, payments send --invoice without --wallet lists suitable wallets, or says that none can pay and why.
• JSON still reports a negative balance as a positive amount with negative: true.