HTML escape / unescape

POST /api/html-escape1 quota unit per call · cache hits free

Escape `<`, `>`, `&`, `"`, `'` to their HTML entities so user content can be safely embedded in HTML. Reverse direction also supported.

Replaces the five HTML-special characters (`<`, `>`, `&`, `"`, `'`) with their named or numeric entities so a piece of user text can be safely embedded inside HTML element content or attribute values. Set `direction: "unescape"` to reverse the operation — recovers the original text from an entity-encoded string. Both named and numeric (`&#xxx;`, `&#xXXXX;`) entities are understood. For untrusted input you typically want `html-sanitize` instead — this tool only escapes characters and does not strip dangerous markup.

Inputs

Name	Type	Default	Description
text*	string	—	The text to escape (or unescape).
mode	enum (escape \| unescape)	"escape"	`escape` (default) — convert specials to entities; `unescape` — reverse.

Response

Modes: json. Cache: yes (24h TTL).

Every response carries x-cache (HIT / MISS / BYPASS), x-cache-signature (stable across identical inputs), and the rate-limit headers listed below.

Quota & limits

Cost per call	1 unit against the 10,000-unit monthly quota. Cache hits are free — only cache misses decrement.
Burst limit	200 requests per rolling minute, shared across all tools.
Max request size	`4 MiB` (base64 inflates file payloads ~33% — the limit applies to the decoded bytes).
Max response size	`8 MiB`
Timeout	5s wall clock.
Rate-limit headers	`X-RateLimit-Limit`, `X-RateLimit-Remaining`, `X-RateLimit-Burst-Limit` on every response; `X-Quota-Warning` once 80% of the monthly quota is spent; `Retry-After` on 429s.

Errors

Errors are JSON with an error string; schema failures add a details object (Zod's flattened field errors).

Status	When	Body
400	Input fails the tool's schema (wrong type, missing required field, malformed base64) or the file bytes can't be parsed as the expected format.	{ "error": "invalid inputs", "details": { "fieldErrors": { … } } }
401	Missing or invalid X-Api-Key / X-Account-Id headers (or no session when called from the browser).	{ "error": "unauthorized" }
404	Unknown tool id, or calling /api/* on the website hostname instead of api.xtract.bot.	{ "error": "not found" }
413	Request body over the tool's max request size, or an image header declaring more megapixels than the tool's pixel budget.	{ "error": "…exceeds maxRequestBytes…" }
415	Content-Type isn't application/json on the json-body transport.	{ "error": "unsupported content-type; expected application/json" }
429	Monthly quota or the 200/min burst limit exhausted. Check Retry-After and the X-RateLimit-* headers.	{ "error": "monthly quota exceeded", "monthRemaining": 0, … }
5xx	Conversion engine failure. Safe to retry; if it persists, the input is hitting a bug — please report it.	{ "error": "…" }

Code samples

Built from the escape-basic example.


curl -X POST https://api.xtract.bot/api/html-escape \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "X-Account-Id: $XTRACT_ACCOUNT_ID" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: $XTRACT_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
  "text": "<a href=\"x\">Tom & \"Jerry\"</a>",
  "mode": "escape"
}'