# HALOWERK researchwerk — Controversy Pulse

> HALOWERK researchwerk — Controversy Pulse is a paid API for AI agents from research.halowerk.com, paid per call via x402, $0.006/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-13).

Measures the controversy level of an organisation over a recent window compared to a baseline, optionally returning supporting news articles

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://research.halowerk.com/v1/controversy-pulse
- Price: $0.006/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-13
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/halowerk-researchwerk-controversy-pulse-df8f4755
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_ykLN_jcexKRoI4Auq_BYq

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 halowerk-researchwerk-controversy-pulse-df8f4755 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you check the controversy pulse for Tesla over the last 7 days compared to an 8-week baseline, and include the relevant articles so I can see what's driving it?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need a quantified, comparative controversy score for a specific organisation — not just raw news results. It is ideal for due diligence, ESG monitoring, reputational risk scoring, or PR early-warning workflows where you need to know whether recent controversy is elevated relative to historical norms. Prefer it over raw news search endpoints when you need a signal rather than raw articles, and over general sentiment endpoints when controversy (not sentiment) is the relevant dimension.

## Known failure modes

- Organisation name too short or not recognised — returns error or zero-signal result
- Time window or baseline format not parseable — returns validation error
- No news coverage found for the organisation in the window — may return null or zero score
- Payment failure via x402 — 402 response, endpoint not reached
- Rate limiting or upstream news source unavailability — 5xx error

## How this service works

Tracks how much is written about an organisation and in what tone, comparing a recent window against the same term own longer baseline, and returns both the volume ratio and the tone shift with the articles behind them. The framing is fixed and repeated in the response: this is an attention signal and not a judgement. A tone drop means more negative language is being used, not that something happened, and a product recall, a lawsuit and a critical opinion piece produce the same deflection.

## Output

Returns a controversy pulse score for the named organisation, quantifying how its recent media controversy (over the specified window) compares to its baseline period. Optionally includes a list of supporting news articles that contributed to the score, enabling further investigation of what is driving the controversy.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "window": {
   "type": "string",
   "default": "7d",
   "maxLength": 6
  },
  "baseline": {
   "type": "string",
   "default": "8w",
   "maxLength": 6
  },
  "organisation": {
   "type": "string",
   "maxLength": 120,
   "minLength": 2
  },
  "include_articles": {
   "type": "boolean",
   "default": true
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/halowerk-researchwerk-controversy-pulse-df8f4755/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from research.halowerk.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/research.halowerk.com/llms.txt)