ai.web-answer

Answer a question from the live web. POST { query, topic?, maxResults? }. Runs a deep web search and returns a synthesized, citation-backed answer plus the ranked source pages (title, URL, snippet). For up-to-the-minute questions an LLM alone can't answer — news, prices, current events, recent releases. topic=news biases toward recent reporting.

Overview

The web answer API is a pay-per-call ai endpoint built for AI agents and autonomous software. Answer a question from the live web.

There is no signup and no API key. An agent (or any HTTP client) hits the endpoint, receives an x402 "402 Payment Required" challenge, signs a sub-cent USDC payment on Base or Solana, and retries — the data comes back on the paid request. That makes it a drop-in web answer data source for an agent tool-use loop, an MCP host, or a backend that needs ai data on demand without onboarding to yet another vendor portal.

Use cases

• Give an AI agent live web answer lookups as a tool, with no API key to provision or rotate — the agent pays per call from a wallet you fund.
• Enrich records in a data pipeline with ai data, paying only for the calls you actually make instead of a monthly seat.
• Ground LLM answers in authoritative ai data to cut hallucination, then optionally request a signed response for verifiability.
• Prototype against the live web answer API in minutes using the free trial call, then flip to per-call x402 payment for production with no code change.

Parameters

Code samples

# 1. Probe the endpoint with no auth — receive 402 with PaymentRequirements
curl -sS -X POST 'https://2s.io/api/ai/web-answer' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query":"xx","topic":"general","maxResults":1}'

# 2. Sign the EIP-3009 transferWithAuthorization for the advertised price +
#    payTo from the 402 envelope, then retry with PAYMENT-SIGNATURE:
curl -sS -X POST 'https://2s.io/api/ai/web-answer' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: <base64-json-payload>' \
  -d '{"query":"xx","topic":"general","maxResults":1}'

# Or just use the canonical runner — it handles the whole loop:
#   EVM_PRIVATE_KEY=0x... node --env-file=.env.local \
#     --experimental-strip-types scripts/x402-pay.ts \
#     'https://2s.io/api/ai/web-answer'

import { TwoS } from '@2sio/sdk'

const client = new TwoS({
  privateKey: process.env.EVM_PRIVATE_KEY as `0x${string}`,
})

const result = await client.ai.webAnswer({
  "query": "xx",
  "topic": "general",
  "maxResults": 1
})

console.log('endpoint:', result.endpoint)
console.log('cost:', result.costUsd, 'USDC')
console.log('tx:', result.settlement?.txHash)
console.log('data:', result.data)

import os
from twosio import TwoS

client = TwoS(private_key=os.environ["EVM_PRIVATE_KEY"])

result = client.ai.web_answer(query="xx", topic="general", maxResults=1)

print("endpoint:", result.endpoint)
print("cost:", result.cost_usd, "USDC")
print("tx:", (result.settlement or {}).get("tx_hash"))
print("data:", result.data)

// 1. Add @2sio/mcp to your MCP host config (Claude Desktop example below).
//    EVM_PRIVATE_KEY funds x402 payments per call.

// claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "2sio": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@2sio/mcp"],
      "env": { "EVM_PRIVATE_KEY": "0x..." }
    }
  }
}

// 2. Once the server is running, agents call this tool via standard MCP:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "ai.web-answer",
    "arguments": {
      "query": "xx",
      "topic": "general",
      "maxResults": 1
    }
  }
}

Response

{
  "ok": true,
  "items": [
    {
      "answer": "example",
      "sources": [
        {
          "title": "example",
          "url": "example",
          "content": "example",
          "score": 1
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "total": 1,
  "source": {
    "provider": "example",
    "url": "example",
    "license": "example"
  }
}

FAQ

Do I need an API key to use the web answer API?

No. ai.web-answer is x402-native — there is no signup and no API key. Your client makes the call, receives a 402 with payment requirements, signs a USDC payment, and retries. Funds come from a wallet you control.

How much does the web answer API cost?

$0.0330 USDC per call, charged per request. There are no monthly fees, seats, or minimums — you pay only for the calls you make.

Can I try the web answer API for free first?

Yes. Add ?trial=1 (or the header X-2s-Trial: 1) to get a free real call per endpoint per hour, so you can verify the response shape before wiring payment.

Which networks and tokens are supported?

USDC on Base (via EIP-3009 transferWithAuthorization) or Solana (SPL transfer), using the open x402 payment protocol.

How do I call ai.web-answer from an AI agent or MCP host?

Use @2sio/sdk (TypeScript), 2sio (Python), or the @2sio/mcp server for any MCP host — each handles the probe → sign → retry loop for you. See the code samples on this page.

Discovery

• /api/directory — full catalog of every endpoint
• /openapi.json — OpenAPI 3.1 spec (per-op x-payment-info, x402Payment security)
• /.well-known/x402 — machine-readable service descriptor for x402-aware crawlers
• /.well-known/mcp/server-card.json — MCP SEP-1649 server card
• /llms.txt — plain-text manifest for LLM ingestion