# payai.agentstools.dev Web Search

> payai.agentstools.dev Web Search is a paid API for AI agents from payai.agentstools.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.001/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-23, last successful call 2026-08-17).

Performs a free-text web search via DuckDuckGo and returns a ranked list of title, URL, and snippet results.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://payai.agentstools.dev/search?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.001/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-23
- Last successful call: 2026-08-17
- Success rate: 100% of calls made through Zero
- Rating: 4.8 / 5 from 4 reviews
- Activations on Zero: 194
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/payai-agentstools-dev-web-search-276a1747
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_ghCJbX0jmBiIfh1tGsrLc

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 payai-agentstools-dev-web-search-276a1747
```

Example prompt: Search the web for 'best open-source LLM frameworks 2024' and give me the top 5 results with titles and URLs.

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when an agent needs lightweight, general-purpose web search without requiring a paid Bing/Google API key. Ideal for quick lookups, news retrieval, or surfacing relevant URLs from the open web. Prefer over specialized endpoints when the query is broad or domain-agnostic.

## Known failure modes

- Missing required 'query' parameter returns a validation error
- max_results out of range (below 1 or above 20) causes a schema validation failure
- DuckDuckGo rate limiting or upstream unavailability may return empty results or a 5xx error
- Very obscure or malformed queries may return zero results
- Payment failure (x402) blocks the request if insufficient USDC balance

## How this service works

Free-text web search for AI agents: ranked title/url/snippet results fused across multiple engines (Brave, Google, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, Startpage, Yahoo), with freshness filters (past day/week/month/year), region/locale and SafeSearch. One call for grounded, up-to-date web results — no keys, no scraping setup.

## Output

Returns a list of up to 20 web search results, each containing a page title, URL, and a short descriptive snippet summarizing the content of that page.

## 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": [
      "query"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "query": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "region": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Locale like 'us-en', 'uk-en', 'de-de' (default us-en)"
      },
      "backend": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "auto (default multi-engine fusion) or a specific engine: brave/duckduckgo/google/mojeek/startpage/wikipedia/yahoo/yandex, or a CSV of them"
      },
      "timelimit": {
       "enum": [
        "d",
        "w",
        "m",
        "y"
       ],
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Freshness/time filter: past day/week/month/year"
      },
      "safesearch": {
       "enum": [
        "on",
        "moderate",
        "off"
       ],
       "type": "string",
       "description": "SafeSearch level (default moderate)"
      },
      "max_results": {
       "type": "integer",
       "maximum": 20,
       "minimum": 1
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "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/payai-agentstools-dev-web-search-276a1747/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)