HTML select

Run a CSS selector against an HTML string and return the matches (text, attrs, and optionally outerHTML for each). Send POST /api/html-select with the required fields html and selector and pay $0.001 per call over x402 or MPP, or call it free by solving a proof-of-work challenge. It returns a JSON object with count and matches.

The deterministic alternative to regex when you already have the HTML and know the selector - pairs with /api/render or any page you've fetched yourself.

Category: Web & documents · Tags: html css-selector queryselector dom scrape extract

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Parameters

Example request

curl -i -X POST https://agent402.tools/api/html-select \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html":"<html><body><h1>One</h1><h1>Two</h1></body></html>","selector":"h1","limit":25}'

Without payment this returns HTTP 402 Payment Required with the exact price for html-select; any x402 v2 or MPP client pays it and retries.

Example response

{
  "count": 2,
  "matches": [
    {
      "text": "One",
      "attrs": {}
    },
    {
      "text": "Two",
      "attrs": {}
    }
  ]
}

From an MCP client

catalog.call {
  "slug": "html-select",
  "params": {
    "html": "<html><body><h1>One</h1><h1>Two</h1></body></html>",
    "selector": "h1",
    "limit": 25
  }
}

On the hosted connector at https://agent402.tools/mcp, catalog.call runs html-select free (rate-limited, no wallet). Local install: npx -y agent402-mcp.

Errors and behavior

• html and selector are required. An input the tool rejects returns an HTTP 4xx whose body carries error, tool, expected, required and example, so the caller can correct it.
• A paid call that ends in any status of 400 or above is not charged over x402, MPP or a prepaid credits key: settlement is cancelled when the tool fails. The exception is a Tempo push credential, a transfer the buyer sent before the call: it settles before the tool runs, so if the tool then fails the payment is recorded as a refund owed to the paying wallet.
• Free tier: no outbound network call leaves the server for this tool, so proof-of-work (16 leading zero bits of sha256) pays for it.
• A GET or HEAD to /api/html-select returns the same 402 quote, so the price can be read without a body.
• An Idempotency-Key header makes a retried paid call replay the first 200 instead of charging again (an answer larger than 1 MB is not replayed).

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();
client.setSpendControls?.(false); // keep your own spending ceiling in code
registerExactEvmScheme(client, { signer: privateKeyToAccount(KEY) });
const payFetch = wrapFetchWithPayment(fetch, client);

const res = await payFetch("https://agent402.tools/api/html-select", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "html": "<html><body><h1>One</h1><h1>Two</h1></body></html>",
    "selector": "h1",
    "limit": 25
  }),
});

No wallet? Pay with compute

Fetch a challenge, solve the sha256 puzzle (16 leading zero bits, a fraction of a second of CPU), 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=html-select")).json();
let n = 0;
while (lz(createHash("sha256").update(c.challenge + ":" + n).digest()) < c.difficulty) n++;
await fetch("https://agent402.tools/api/html-select", { method: "POST", headers: { "X-Pow-Solution": c.token + ":" + n, "Content-Type": "application/json" }, body: JSON.stringify({"html":"<html><body><h1>One</h1><h1>Two</h1></body></html>","selector":"h1","limit":25}) });

Part of these workflows

HTML select is one step in this skill pack, each sold as a single call:

• Structured scrape - Pull structured data out of any web page deterministically - articles to clean text, tables to JSON rows, specific elements via CSS selector - without writing regex against raw HTML.

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