# Clink Forge US Debt to the Penny

> Clink Forge US Debt to the Penny is a paid API for AI agents from api.clinkforge.com, paid per call via x402, $0.001/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-15).

Returns the current US national debt to the penny with cryptographic provenance and attestation, sold per call via x402 micropayment.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://api.clinkforge.com/v1/p/us-debt-to-penny
- Price: $0.001/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-15
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/clink-forge-us-debt-to-the-penny-fa854e06
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_HbcaHRbTM0mbU3nW_PFh_

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 clink-forge-us-debt-to-the-penny-fa854e06
```

Example prompt: What is the US national debt right now, down to the penny? I need the figure with a verified source and cryptographic proof that the data hasn't been tampered with.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need the US national debt figure with a cryptographically signed provenance chain that can be independently verified — ideal for audits, compliance workflows, on-chain integrations, or any use case where data integrity and source traceability matter. Prefer it over scraping Treasury.gov directly when you need machine-readable structured output with an attestation you can store and verify later.

## Known failure modes

- Payment not received or insufficient USDC balance — returns HTTP 402 with payment instructions
- Invalid date-time format in start/end query params — returns 400 bad request
- Data not yet available for the requested date range — may return empty rows
- Upstream Treasury data source unavailable — may result in stale or missing data
- Signature verification failure on client side if attestation key is not recognized

## How this service works

Pay per call over x402. USDC on Base, no account, no API key. 28 government-sourced data products at $0.001–$0.05 per call, every response signed and provenance-chained.

## Output

Returns an array of data rows containing the US debt value(s), a product metadata block (slug and version), a provenance chain with license ID (US-GOV-PD), source URL pointing to the originating government agency, and observation timestamp, plus an Ed25519 cryptographic attestation signature and a settlement reference from the x402 payment receipt.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "const": "GET"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [],
     "properties": {
      "end": {
       "type": "string",
       "format": "date-time"
      },
      "start": {
       "type": "string",
       "format": "date-time"
      }
     },
     "additionalProperties": false
    }
   }
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "data": [
   {
    "field": "value",
    "_record_id": "R-100"
   }
  ],
  "product": "example-product",
  "row_count": 1,
  "provenance": [
   {
    "hash": "sha256...",
    "authority": "AGENCY",
    "source_url": "https://agency.gov/data",
    "observed_at": "2026-08-25T00:00:00Z"
   }
  ],
  "attestation": {
   "signature": "base64...",
   "result_digest": "sha256...",
   "signing_key_id": "forge-signing-1"
  },
  "payment_receipt": {
   "amount_usd": 0.01,
   "settlement_ref": "0xtx..."
  },
  "product_version": 1
 },
 "description": "data rows + provenance chain + attestation"
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/clink-forge-us-debt-to-the-penny-fa854e06/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.clinkforge.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.clinkforge.com/llms.txt)