Search research papers API

Endpoint facts

Method

GET

API path

/research/papers/search

Auth

apiKey

Credits

up to 12 credits/request

Charged on

Successful 2xx responses only

Platform

Research

Execution

Managed browser rendering where the target needs it

How this endpoint behaves

Searches the enabled arXiv corpus and freezes a bounded candidate window in an owner-bound durable snapshot. Requires the x-api-key header. A continuation supplies only cursor and optional limit; it reads the saved window without another provider query. The response has no invented corpus total or offset pagination.

Source behaviour:

• The candidate window (up to 200 papers) is fetched from arXiv in one request. The same query from any caller within a few hours is served from that shared window without another arXiv request; usage.search_requests is then 0 and coverage[].retrieved_at shows when the window was retrieved. The price is the same either way.
• If arXiv refuses the request (rate limited) or fails, the search is answered from OpenAlex's index of arXiv papers. The response is then partial: true, coverage has the arxiv entry with status failed (reason rate_limited or upstream_error) plus an openalex entry with status ok, and a source_failed warning says so. Ranking, coverage and abstracts can differ from arXiv's own search, and these results carry only the arXiv identifier and the publication year derived from it (no publication date).
• A search with published_from/published_to is never answered from OpenAlex, because its dates for arXiv papers are unreliable; while arXiv is unavailable such a search returns 503 with a Retry-After hint.
• While arXiv is asking us to slow down, a search that cannot be answered otherwise returns 503 at once with a Retry-After hint instead of waiting.

Query parameters:

• q: required search terms, 1–1000 characters.
• limit: optional, 1–50; default 10.
• sources: optional repeated source filter; the only accepted value is arxiv. Omitted defaults to arxiv.
• authors: optional repeated author filter, at most five unique names (256 characters each).
• published_from, published_to: optional inclusive dates in YYYY-MM-DD; the lower date may not follow the upper date.
• cursor: optional owner-bound cursor, up to 2048 characters. When present, q, sources, authors, and date filters are forbidden; only cursor and optional limit are accepted.

Response enum values:

• items[].paper.identifiers[].namespace: arxiv, doi, pmid, pmcid.
• items[].paper.content_level: metadata, abstract, full_text.
• coverage[].source_id: arxiv, openalex (only when the OpenAlex fallback answered).
• coverage[].status: ok, failed, not_indexed, unsupported.
• coverage[].failure.reason: invalid_url, unsupported_content_type, blocked, not_found, rate_limited, timeout, upstream_error, internal_error, out_of_scope, robots_disallowed, duplicate, limit_reached, unsupported_filter, unknown_source, idempotency_conflict, invalid_cursor, result_expired, full_text_unavailable, budget_exhausted.
• warnings[].code: source_failed, source_not_indexed, discovery_truncated, ranking_window_limit, imprecise_date_excluded, content_unavailable, cached_source_stale.

Example request:

GET /api/v1/research/papers/search?q=transformer%20attention&sources=arxiv&limit=10

Sampled response

Request, 14 Oct 2026

GET /research/papers/search?limit=40&q=Attention+Is+All+You+Need

Items in items

40

Fields filled in every checked item

2

Shared guides

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