# CRAN Package Description Metadata Lookup

> CRAN Package Description Metadata Lookup is a paid API for AI agents from clonecho.builda.company, paid per call via x402, $0.02/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-14).

Fetches DESCRIPTION-file metadata for a specified R package on CRAN, returning structured JSON with package details.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://clonecho.builda.company/x402/s/cran-package
- Price: $0.02/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-14
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/cran-package-description-metadata-lookup-a2f02d34
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_-ffm6MQgPda4-WDbiYfLu

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 cran-package-description-metadata-lookup-a2f02d34 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you pull up the CRAN package metadata for 'data.table' — I want to know its version, author, maintainer, and what it depends on?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need structured metadata about an R package hosted on CRAN, such as version, author, maintainer, or dependency information. Prefer this over scraping the CRAN web page directly or using general web search when you need machine-readable, structured JSON output for a known package name.

## Known failure modes

- Package name not found on CRAN — returns error or empty response
- Misspelled package name yields no results
- CRAN is temporarily unavailable causing timeout
- Package has been archived and metadata may be incomplete

## How this service works

Description-file metadata for an R package on CRAN (param pkg = package name). Query: ?pkg= Returns JSON.

## Output

A JSON object containing the DESCRIPTION file metadata for the specified R package on CRAN, including fields such as package name, version, title, description, author, maintainer, license, dependencies, and other standard DESCRIPTION file entries.

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/cran-package-description-metadata-lookup-a2f02d34/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from clonecho.builda.company](https://www.zero.xyz/host/clonecho.builda.company/llms.txt)