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API Reference

The Researchful Citation API.

A programmatic interface to the Researchful citation graph — papers, authors, citations, and topics. Build tools that query the same data powering ResearchLib.

Currently in private beta. Join the waitlist to be notified when it opens.
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Planned endpoints

The API will launch with the following endpoints. All responses are JSON, paginated (default 20, max 100), and rate-limited to 60 requests per minute per API key.

GET /api/v1/papers/:id Fetch metadata for a single paper by Researchful ID or DOI.
GET /api/v1/papers/:id/citations Forward and backward citation graph for a paper.
GET /api/v1/authors/:id Author profile with h-index, recent work, and co-authors.
GET /api/v1/search?q= Semantic search across the indexed source library.
GET /api/v1/topics/:slug Browse papers and collections by topic.
POST /api/v1/cite Generate a formatted citation (APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE).

Authentication

API requests are authenticated with a bearer token. Tokens are scoped per project and revocable from /app/settings → API tokens. Tokens inherit the rate limit of the owning account.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer rf_live_xxx" \
  https://api.researchful.app/v1/papers/10.1234/example

Rate limits and quotas

  • Free plan — 60 requests per minute, 1,000 requests per month.
  • Student Pro — 120 requests per minute, 10,000 requests per month.
  • Institution — custom rate limits and monthly quotas, with optional dedicated infrastructure.

Rate limit headers (X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Reset) are returned on every response. When the limit is exceeded, the API returns HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header.

Terms of use

By using the Researchful API, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The citation graph is licensed for non-commercial research use; commercial redistribution requires a separate agreement. Attribution to Researchful and the original publishers is required for any public use of API data.

We do not permit use of the API to train machine learning models that compete with Researchful, to scrape bulk data for redistribution, or to enable cross-context advertising. Suspicious patterns will result in token revocation.

Changelog

The API is versioned (currently v1). Breaking changes will increment the version; non-breaking changes are released continuously. Subscribe to the waitlist to receive changelog notifications.