# Machine Shop – Normalize Text

> Machine Shop – Normalize Text is a paid API for AI agents from api.pay-forge.online, paid per call via x402, $0.004/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-20).

Normalizes and cleans text from supplied documents, stripping formatting noise to prepare for further extraction or comparison tasks.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://api.pay-forge.online/v1/normalize-text?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.004/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-20
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/machine-shop-normalize-text-3223ef8d
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_1QIXl5KlW29PNw32GZ9ed

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 machine-shop-normalize-text-3223ef8d -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you normalize this messy pasted text for me — it has inconsistent spacing, weird characters, and mixed encoding — so it's clean and ready to extract structured fields from: 'Hello   world\n\nThis is a  test...'

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need to clean and standardize raw text before feeding it into extraction, comparison, or analysis workflows — especially when dealing with OCR output, inconsistently formatted pastes, or documents exported from different systems. It is a low-cost preprocessing step ($0.004 USDC) and previewing inputs and cost is free, making it safe to call speculatively before committing to heavier downstream operations.

## Known failure modes

- Text exceeds 50,000 character limit — request rejected with validation error
- Empty or missing text field — returns error indicating required field
- Malformed JSON body — returns 400 bad request
- Payment not attached or insufficient — returns HTTP 402 with x402 payment quote

## How this service works

Turn Apify product scrape results into safe catalog updates with Catalog Update Gate. Find evidence in supplied documents, compare snapshots, extract typed JSON fields, inspect x402 quotes and assess API migrations. Preview inputs, evidence and cost for free. No live web search, scheduled monitoring or third-party purchasing.

## Output

Returns a JSON object containing the normalized version of the input text, with whitespace standardized, encoding cleaned, and formatting noise removed, ready for downstream extraction or comparison tasks.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "text": {
   "type": "string",
   "title": "Text",
   "maxLength": 50000
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "text": "Hello world"
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/machine-shop-normalize-text-3223ef8d/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.pay-forge.online](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.pay-forge.online/llms.txt)