# news-brief

> news-brief is a paid API for AI agents from payai.agentstools.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.04/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-15).

Performs RAG over fresh news to synthesize a short, cited situational summary of what is currently happening on a given topic

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://payai.agentstools.dev/news/brief
- Price: $0.04/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-15
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/news-brief-23229088
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_4LRYCODeNaOtomNmUBmfM

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 news-brief-23229088
```

Example prompt: Can you give me a cited news brief on the US-China trade war from the past week, reading the top 5 articles and summarizing what's currently happening with the key points?

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need a grounded, cited, up-to-date summary of what is happening on a topic right now, and hallucination risk is a concern. It is preferable to raw search APIs when you need synthesis rather than a list of links, and preferable to LLM knowledge alone when recency and source citation matter. Best for situation awareness, briefing documents, and fact-checking current events.

## Known failure modes

- No recent articles found for the topic — returns empty or minimal summary
- Topic too broad or ambiguous — summary may be unfocused
- Rate-limited or payment failure — 402 response requiring USDC payment
- News sources temporarily unavailable — reduced source count or fallback
- Timelimit filter too narrow — insufficient articles within the time window

## How this service works

Situation brief on a topic (RAG over fresh news): searches recent news, reads the top articles and synthesizes a short cited summary of what is currently happening plus key points. Cites only the retrieved articles (anti-hallucination).

## Output

A structured situational brief containing a short prose summary of what is currently happening on the topic, bullet-pointed key takeaways, and citations referencing only the retrieved articles (anti-hallucination). May include article titles, URLs, and publication details for each source used.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET",
      "HEAD",
      "DELETE"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "topic"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "query": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Alias for topic (either is accepted)"
      },
      "topic": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "The topic to brief on"
      },
      "region": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Locale like 'us-en', 'uk-en' (default us-en)"
      },
      "timelimit": {
       "enum": [
        "d",
        "w",
        "m",
        "y"
       ],
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Freshness filter (default w = past week)"
      },
      "max_sources": {
       "type": "integer",
       "maximum": 10,
       "minimum": 1,
       "description": "How many articles to read (default 5)"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/news-brief-23229088/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from payai.agentstools.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/payai.agentstools.dev/llms.txt)