HTTP/1.1 402 PAYMENT REQUIRED agent402.base.eth · BASE · SOLANA · POLYGON · ARBITRUM · MONAD · CELO · AVALANCHE · STELLAR · ALGORAND · ROBINHOOD · USDC · USDG
Agent402 / tools / json-query

JSON query

FREE with proof-of-work · or $0.001 in USDC · POST /api/json-query

Extract a value from JSON by dot/bracket path, e.g. "items[2].name".

Input

FieldTypeDescription
json *anyJSON value (or a JSON string of one)
path *stringPath like "a.b[0].c"

Example output

{
  "found": true,
  "value": "b"
}

Try it - see the 402 challenge (free)

curl -i -X POST https://agent402.tools/api/json-query \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"json":{"items":[{"name":"a"},{"name":"b"}]},"path":"items[1].name"}'

The response is HTTP 402 Payment Required with exact payment requirements. Any x402 v2 client pays automatically and retries:

Paid call (JavaScript agent)

import { wrapFetchWithPayment } from "@x402/fetch";
import { x402Client } from "@x402/core/client";
import { registerExactEvmScheme } from "@x402/evm/exact/client";
import { privateKeyToAccount } from "viem/accounts";

const client = new x402Client();
registerExactEvmScheme(client, { signer: privateKeyToAccount(KEY) });
const payFetch = wrapFetchWithPayment(fetch, client);

const res = await payFetch("https://agent402.tools/api/json-query", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "json": {
      "items": [
        {
          "name": "a"
        },
        {
          "name": "b"
        }
      ]
    },
    "path": "items[1].name"
  }),
});

No wallet? Pay with compute

This is a pure-CPU tool, so an agent without a wallet can pay with proof-of-work instead of USDC: fetch a challenge, solve the sha256 puzzle (16 leading zero bits - a fraction of a second of CPU, no money, no AI tokens), and resend with the X-Pow-Solution header.

import { createHash } from "node:crypto";
const lz = (b) => { let t = 0; for (const x of b) { if (!x) { t += 8; continue; } t += Math.clz32(x) - 24; break; } return t; };
const c = await (await fetch("https://agent402.tools/api/pow/challenge?slug=json-query")).json();
let n = 0;
while (lz(createHash("sha256").update(c.challenge + ":" + n).digest()) < c.difficulty) n++;
await fetch("https://agent402.tools/api/json-query", { method: "POST", headers: { "X-Pow-Solution": c.token + ":" + n, "Content-Type": "application/json" }, body: JSON.stringify({"json":{"items":[{"name":"a"},{"name":"b"}]},"path":"items[1].name"}) });

Part of these workflows

This tool is one step in 2 curated multi-tool workflows - agents can fetch the whole sequence as an MCP prompt or call https://agent402.tools/api/skill-packs/{slug}/prompt.

Related tools

JSON validate & format

FREE w/ compute · or $0.001 · POST /api/json-format

Validate, pretty-print, or minify JSON. Returns parse errors with position when invalid.

JSON to CSV

FREE w/ compute · or $0.002 · POST /api/json-to-csv

Convert a JSON array of objects to CSV. Nested objects are flattened to dot-path columns.

CSV to JSON

FREE w/ compute · or $0.002 · POST /api/csv-to-json

Parse CSV (quoted fields supported) into a JSON array of objects, using the first row as headers (header=false for array…