# library.forgemesh.io Walden Passage Retrieval

> library.forgemesh.io Walden Passage Retrieval 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 passages from Thoreau's Walden in response to a natural-language question, with chapter and location citations

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://library.forgemesh.io/ask-walden
- 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-walden-passage-retrieval-7e3437c5
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_hEnCLO7rH2qpQY5Xkckus

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-walden-passage-retrieval-7e3437c5 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Search Walden for passages where Thoreau talks about simplicity and give me up to 8 of the most relevant excerpts with their chapter and location citations.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need verbatim, citable passages from Walden specifically — not a paraphrase, summary, or AI-generated answer. Ideal for research, essay writing, literary analysis, or any workflow that requires traceable citations back to the original Thoreau text. Prefer the full-corpus search endpoint on library.forgemesh.io if you need to search across multiple public-domain works rather than just Walden.

## Known failure modes

- Question string is empty or missing — likely returns a 400 error
- Limit exceeds 15 — may be clamped or return an error
- Payment not included or invalid — returns 402 Payment Required
- Question is too vague or off-topic — returns passages with low relevance or an empty result set
- Network or service downtime — returns 5xx error

## How this service works

Ask a question about Thoreau's Walden 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 relevant passages extracted verbatim from Walden, each accompanied by a chapter name and location citation within the text, ranked by relevance to the submitted question. No generated summaries or AI-synthesized answers — only raw text from the source.

## 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 he say about simplicity?\""
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "count": 3,
  "title": "Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience",
  "author": "Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862",
  "method": "full-text retrieval — returns the most relevant passages from the book for your question; no summarization or generation",
  "book_id": 205,
  "passages": [
   {
    "text": "…[Simplicity], [simplicity], [simplicity]! I say, let your affairs be as two or three…",
    "chapter": 2,
    "location": "chapter 2, passage #30"
   }
  ],
  "question": "what does he say about simplicity"
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/library-forgemesh-io-walden-passage-retrieval-7e3437c5/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)