# agent402.tools Search and Cite

> agent402.tools Search and Cite is a paid API for AI agents from agent402.tools, paid per call via x402, $0.119/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-13).

Executes a multi-source research workflow that answers a natural-language question with an AI-synthesized response and cited sources from Brave Answer, Brave Web, and Brave News

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://agent402.tools/api/skill/search-and-cite
- Price: $0.119/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-13
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/agent402-tools-search-and-cite-7b89ecc3
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_h7HWdUSjO4GyZF-MLrlwg

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-search-and-cite-7b89ecc3 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you research 'What are the latest developments in nuclear fusion energy?' and give me a thorough answer with citations from the web and recent news?

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need a comprehensive, citation-backed answer to a research question that benefits from combining AI synthesis with live web and news sources. Ideal when verifiability and source attribution matter, or when the question involves current events. Prefer over single-source search when you want both breadth (SERP) and recency (news) in one call.

## Known failure modes

- Empty or ambiguous question yields low-quality or generic answer
- No news results available for very niche or obscure topics
- Citation sources may be paywalled or unavailable
- Rate limiting or payment failure (x402 protocol) returns 402 error
- Brave Search API outage causes full workflow failure
- Very recent events may not yet be indexed, returning outdated answers

## How this service works

Bundled execution of the Answer-a-question with sources workflow - The 'research a question, return an answer with citations' workflow. Brave answer for the AI-synthesized take with citations, Brave web for the canonical SERP, Brave news for time-sensitive context, then a deterministic web-fetch + extract pass on the top citations to verify the answer hasn't hallucinated. Five tools, one cited paragraph, every claim traced back to a fetched URL.

## Output

Returns an AI-synthesized answer to the question along with citations drawn from Brave's answer engine (for AI-generated synthesis), Brave Web SERP (canonical web results), and Brave News (recent news coverage), providing a multi-source, time-aware response with source links.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "question": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "the research question to answer with citations"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "args": {
   "question": "What is the Sahm Rule and has it triggered recently?"
  },
  "pack": "search-and-cite",
  "steps": [
   {
    "ok": true,
    "slug": "answer",
    "result": {}
   },
   {
    "ok": true,
    "slug": "search",
    "result": {}
   },
   {
    "ok": true,
    "slug": "search-news",
    "result": {}
   },
   {
    "ok": true,
    "slug": "extract",
    "result": {}
   },
   {
    "ok": true,
    "slug": "extract-entities",
    "result": {}
   }
  ],
  "summary": "5/5 steps succeeded"
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/agent402-tools-search-and-cite-7b89ecc3/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)