# library.forgemesh.io – Ask The Art of War

> library.forgemesh.io – Ask The Art of War is a paid API for AI agents from library.forgemesh.io, paid per call via x402, $0.01/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-14).

Retrieves the most relevant verbatim passages from Sun Tzu's The Art of War in response to a natural-language question, with chapter and location citations.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://library.forgemesh.io/ask-art-of-war
- Price: $0.01/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-14
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/library-forgemesh-io-ask-the-art-of-war-a30ec484
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_6sZBDqPNKauEG8-VqtlFG

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 library-forgemesh-io-ask-the-art-of-war-a30ec484 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Search The Art of War for what Sun Tzu says about deception and misdirection — give me up to 8 of the most relevant passages with their chapter citations.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need verbatim, citable passages from The Art of War with chapter and location references, rather than a paraphrased summary or AI-generated answer. Ideal for research, academic citation, philosophy agents, or any task requiring source-accurate quotes from this specific text. Prefer over general web search when accuracy and provenance of the exact text matter.

## Known failure modes

- Question too vague to match any passages — returns empty or low-relevance results
- Limit parameter exceeds maximum of 15 — may be clamped or rejected
- Payment not processed (x402 protocol failure) — endpoint returns 402 before executing query
- Network timeout for slow or overloaded requests

## How this service works

Ask a question about The Art of War and get back the most relevant passages from the text itself, with chapter and location citations. Retrieval only — full-text search, not a generated summary or answer. No license, no API key required.

## Output

An ordered list of verbatim passages from The Art of War most relevant to the query, each annotated with its chapter number and location within the text. No generated summaries or AI-composed answers — raw source text only.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "limit": {
   "type": "integer",
   "description": "Max passages (default 5, max 15)"
  },
  "question": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "Your question about the book, e.g. \"what does it say about deception?\""
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "count": 2,
  "title": "The Art of War",
  "author": "Sunzi, active 6th century B.C.",
  "method": "full-text retrieval — returns the most relevant passages from the book for your question; no summarization or generation",
  "book_id": 132,
  "passages": [
   {
    "text": "…All warfare is based on [deception]…",
    "chapter": 1,
    "location": "chapter 1, passage #12"
   }
  ],
  "question": "what does it say about deception"
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/library-forgemesh-io-ask-the-art-of-war-a30ec484/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)