# agent402.tools Naive/Mean/Drift Baseline Forecast

> agent402.tools Naive/Mean/Drift Baseline Forecast is a paid API for AI agents from agent402.tools, paid per call via x402, $0.001/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-14).

Generates simple baseline time-series forecasts (mean, naive, or drift methods) for a given numeric series and forecast horizon

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://agent402.tools/api/forecast-naive
- Price: $0.001/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-14
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/agent402-tools-naive-mean-drift-baseline-forecast-8a82b623
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_z6p7pXm3x-zdlbZKzUJCo

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability agent402-tools-naive-mean-drift-baseline-forecast-8a82b623 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Use the drift method to forecast the next 12 periods for this monthly sales series: [120, 135, 128, 142, 150, 163, 158, 172, 180, 195, 188, 210].

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need a quick, cheap sanity-floor forecast to benchmark against more sophisticated methods (SES, Holt, Holt-Winters, ARIMA). Ideal for establishing a performance baseline, validating that a complex model is actually adding value, or when you need a fast, interpretable prediction without model fitting. Best when the series is short or when you explicitly need a textbook mean, naive, or drift forecast.

## Known failure modes

- Empty or missing values array returns validation error
- Horizon outside 1–1000 range rejected
- Values array exceeding 10,000 elements rejected
- Non-numeric values in array cause parse error
- Invalid method string (not 'mean', 'naive', or 'drift') returns error
- Payment failure (x402) blocks request if USDC balance is insufficient

## How this service works

Three textbook baseline forecasts: mean (forecast = average of history), naive (forecast = last value), drift (linear extrapolation from first to last point). Use as a sanity floor - any sophisticated method (SES, Holt, Holt-Winters) should beat the best of these on a backtest, otherwise the extra complexity isn't earning its keep. Returns point forecasts + 95% prediction intervals per Hyndman §3.1.

## Output

Returns an array of forecasted numeric values for the requested number of future periods, computed using the selected baseline method (mean = average of all historical values, naive = last observed value repeated, drift = linear extrapolation from first to last point).

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "method": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "\"mean\", \"naive\", or \"drift\" (default \"drift\")"
  },
  "values": {
   "type": "array",
   "description": "Numeric series in chronological order (max 10000)"
  },
  "horizon": {
   "type": "number",
   "description": "Number of future periods to forecast (1 to 1000)"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "n": 10,
  "method": "drift",
  "horizon": 3,
  "forecast": [
   {
    "step": 1,
    "point": 23.3333,
    "lower95": 21.8037,
    "upper95": 24.863
   },
   {
    "step": 2,
    "point": 24.6667,
    "lower95": 22.3979,
    "upper95": 26.9355
   },
   {
    "step": 3,
    "point": 26,
    "lower95": 23.0977,
    "upper95": 28.9023
   }
  ]
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/agent402-tools-naive-mean-drift-baseline-forecast-8a82b623/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from agent402.tools](https://www.zero.xyz/host/agent402.tools/llms.txt)