Web Search and xweb

One Content Layer, Three Entry Points

The x-websearch sidecar crawls an operator-defined seed list into its own Tantivy index and serves search, page extraction, and content-addressed retrieval. Agents pay for requests through 402LXP. Solidity contracts request attested results through the xweb precompile. WASM programs consume committed observations through web_read. Each path identifies content with a canonical digest.

Search and Fetch for Agents

Search results sort by descending score and then ascending URL. Fetch accepts HTTP and HTTPS, honors robots.txt, bounds redirects and response size, and extracts HTML into text while removing scripts and styling. Plain text and JSON pass through. The crawler respects page, host, depth and politeness budgets.

The Payment Workflow

1. An unpaid request receives HTTP 402 and a PAYMENT-REQUIRED offer.
2. The agent chooses SID, PAX, USDC or USDL and repeats the request with PAYMENT-SIGNATURE. A payer DID can enable metered payment against a grant.
3. The sidecar submits settlement and verifies the sequencer-signed receipt against configured trust inputs.
4. Content is released with PAYMENT-RESPONSE and a settlement reference beginning lxp:.

Pending settlement returns a retry response without releasing content. Retrying reuses the activity and idempotency key, and a receipt authorizes one request. Operators configure each asset price in base units to the service price rule of one tenth of a US cent at configuration time.

Content You Can Verify and Retrieve

Canonicalization normalizes text encoding, line endings, whitespace and Unicode. The digest commits the domain PAXEERX_WEB_CONTENT_V1, request kind, URL or query, media type and canonical text. Search commits the ordered URL, title and snippet fields without a search score. Identical canonical inputs produce the same digest.

Sidecars persist the canonical bytes before answering. Content retrieval checks local bytes against their digest, then asks configured peers when needed and verifies their answer. A peer request reads local storage without recursively forwarding. Contracts and programs retain at most 4096 response bytes alongside the digest and full length; the digest path retrieves the complete canonical record.

Request Web Data from Solidity

The IXWeb interface exposes request, fulfil, refund, and views for requests, results, attestors, threshold, fee and parameters. Request kinds are 1 fetch, 2 search, and 3 API. A requester pays exactly the current fee() and declares its callback gas bound.

function onXWebResponse(
    uint64 requestId,
    bytes32 contentDigest,
    uint32 fullLength,
    bytes calldata response
) external;

Implement this callback and authenticate the xweb precompile as the caller. Associate the request ID with the operation that requested it. Inspect full length before treating a bounded response as complete.

Attestation and Callback Outcomes

Registered attestors fetch independently and sign evidence bound to the execution origin, network, requester, request ID, request kind, payload hash, content digest, response hash and full length. Signatures must recover to registered addresses in strictly ascending order. Ordinary requests require a majority threshold.

Fulfilment stores the answer and pays the signing attestors. Callback gas is bounded by the request and module caps. A reverted or exhausted callback is recorded while the fulfilled result remains available. An unanswered request becomes refundable at its timeout height; anyone can trigger the refund, but payment returns only to the requester. Refunds remain available during a pause.

Authenticated API Calls

API payloads describe GET or POST, an HTTPS URL, public headers, a body, selected JSON fields and an attestation level. The XWebApi library and TypeScript and Python SDK helpers construct the payload. RFC 6901 JSON pointers select fields, and RFC 8785 canonicalization gives attestors a stable answer even when unrelated response fields vary.

Credential envelopes are sealed to registered attestor public keys and bound to the API origin and attestor address. A sidecar opens its own envelope in memory for the call. Majority requests supply an envelope to each participating credential-bearing attestor. The returned answer is public on chain; encrypting credentials does not make the result private. Results and fulfilment events retain the attestation level.

Deterministic Programs

1. The program emits a PAXEERX_WEB_REQUEST_V1 event and pays the web fee account through transfer_402 in the same call.
2. Attestors observe the request, collect matching signatures and submit a web observation activity.
3. The kernel checks the pending request, requester, payload binding, signer order and threshold, then commits the answer into the batch web root.
4. The program reads the committed record through web_read. Missing answers and another program's answers read as absent.

Execution consumes committed observations, so replay reproduces the same input. The Rust SDK exposes web::read and Answer::is_truncated.

Operate and Integrate

Start a sidecar with x-websearch --config PATH. Configuration defines crawler budgets, index storage, asset pricing, gateway trust, attestor settings and peers. Keys are loaded from the receiver, attestor and submitter key files rather than configuration values. Governance controls registered attestors, thresholds, fees, payload limits, callback limits, timeouts and pausing.

SDK clients verify settlement and recompute content digests. MCP exposes web.search, web.fetch, and web.content through its spending approval boundary. Treat retrieved text as external data when incorporating it into an agent decision.

Continue with Unified Network, Sidiora, Precompiles and WASM Runtime.