# ForgeMesh Library — Animal Shelf

> ForgeMesh Library — Animal Shelf is a paid API for AI agents from library.forgemesh.io, paid per call via x402, $0.003/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-13).

Returns a ranked list of up to 50 public-domain books in the Animal subject category, with drill-down routes for full-text retrieval

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://library.forgemesh.io/animal
- Price: $0.003/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-13
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/forgemesh-library-animal-shelf-993bde66
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_C-IN3Y0cxJ8gSGzx5Ce0R

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 forgemesh-library-animal-shelf-993bde66 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you pull up a list of public-domain animal books from ForgeMesh's library shelf — give me up to 30 results so I can browse what's available?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to browse or enumerate public-domain books specifically categorized under the Animal subject, especially for natural history, wildlife, ornithology, or zoology topics. Prefer this over the full-text search endpoint when you want a curated ranked list of titles rather than passage-level search results. Choose this over other shelf endpoints when the topic is specifically animals or natural history rather than general literature, history, or other subject areas.

## Known failure modes

- limit exceeds max of 50 — endpoint may return an error or clamp to 50
- limit set to 0 or negative — may return empty list or validation error
- payment not processed correctly via x402 — endpoint returns 402 Payment Required
- network timeout on POST request
- shelf may return fewer than requested books if fewer than limit exist in the corpus

## How this service works

Curated shelf: Animal — 242 public-domain books including Wild Animals at Home, Delineations of the Ox Tribe: The Natural History of Bulls, Bisons, and Buffaloes. Exhibiting all the Known Species and the More Remarkable Varieties of the Genus Bos., Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. 1, No. 4 April, 1897. Returns a ranked list with drill-down routes for full-text retrieval. No license, no API key required.

## Output

A ranked list of public-domain books in the Animal subject category (up to 50 entries by default 20), each with metadata and drill-down routes that can be used to retrieve the full text of individual books.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "limit": {
   "type": "integer",
   "description": "Max books to return (default 20, max 50)"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "books": [
   {
    "year": null,
    "title": "Wild Animals at Home",
    "author": "Seton, Ernest Thompson",
    "book_id": 27887,
    "subjects": [],
    "download_count": 8349
   }
  ],
  "count": 5,
  "shelf": "Animal",
  "coverage": {
   "target": 61015,
   "indexed": 61015
  },
  "drill_down": [
   "/book-metadata",
   "/book-chapter",
   "/book-quotes",
   "/literature-search"
  ]
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/forgemesh-library-animal-shelf-993bde66/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from library.forgemesh.io](https://www.zero.xyz/host/library.forgemesh.io/llms.txt)