Scholar Sidekick API Docs

Try it in Postman

Fork the Scholar Sidekick collection into your own Postman workspace to run live requests against the API.

Or browse the verified Scholar Sidekick public workspace on Postman directly - fork the collection, run requests against the live API, or share it with your team.

Base

All endpoints are relative to your deployment origin. See /api/health for a quick status snapshot.

OpenAPI specs: /openapi/openapi.yml (public) and /openapi/rapidapi/openapi.yml (RapidAPI).

GET  /api/health
POST /api/format
POST /api/format/stream     (NDJSON)
POST /api/format-items
POST /api/export
POST /api/verify            (citation verifier)
POST /api/retraction-check
POST /api/oa-check

/api/format

Formats a list of identifiers (DOI / PMID / PMCID / ISBN / ISSN / arXiv / ADS bibcode / WHO IRIS). Detects and normalises automatically.

POST /api/format
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "text": "10.1038/nphys1170\nPMID: 34812345\n9780306406157",
  "style": "vancouver",          // or "ama" | "apa" | "ieee" | any CSL style id (e.g., "chicago-author-date")
  "locale": "en-US",              // optional CSL locale (e.g., "en-GB")
  "output": "text",               // "text" | "html" (CSL)
  "footnotes": false              // when output=html, render as footnotes
}

200 OK
X-Scholar-Cache: ENABLED|BYPASS
X-RateLimit-Limit: 30
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 28
X-RateLimit-Reset: 1736569200

{
  "ok": true,
  "items": [
    { "ok": true, "formatted": "Doe J, ..." , "_source": { "id": "10.1038/nphys1170", "fetchedAt": "..." } },
    { "ok": false, "error": "PMID not found" }
  ]
}

curl -sS -X POST https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/format \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text":"10.1038/nphys1170","style":"vancouver","output":"text"}'

/api/format/stream (NDJSON)

Streams events: start → item → done.

curl -N -sS -X POST https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/format/stream \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text":"10.1038/nphys1170\nPMID:34812345","style":"apa","output":"html"}'

/api/format-items

Like /api/format but accepts already-resolved CSL JSON items.

/api/export

Exports to TXT, BibTeX, RIS, CSL JSON, EndNote (Refer/XML), RefWorks, MEDLINE, CSV, Zotero RDF.

Print to stdout:

curl -sS -X POST https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/export \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text":"10.1038/nphys1170\n9780306406157","format":"ris","style":"vancouver"}'

Or save to a file:

curl -sS -X POST https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/export \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text":"10.1038/nphys1170\n9780306406157","format":"ris","style":"vancouver"}' \
  > citations.ris

/api/verify

Checks whether a claimed citation matches the record its identifier resolves to - catching the dominant AI-era fabrication pattern (a real, resolving DOI paired with a fabricated title). Returns a verdict of matched | mismatch | ambiguous | not_found, each with a confidence tier. The verdict is the answer: 200 OK on every produced verdict; 4xx/5xx only for protocol errors.

claimed.title is required; an identifier is optional but recommended. Known limitations are published at /citation-integrity/known-failures.md.

POST /api/verify
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "claimed": {
    "title": "A Novel Deep Learning Framework for Real-Time Citation Verification",
    "authors": [{ "family": "Chen", "given": "F" }],   // optional
    "year": 2023,                                        // optional
    "container": "Neuroscience",                         // optional
    "doi": "10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3"               // optional identifier (doi/pmid/pmcid/isbn/arxiv/issn/ads)
  }
}

200 OK
X-Scholar-Verify-Verdict: mismatch
X-Scholar-Verify-Confidence: high
X-Scholar-Verify-Version: 2026-05-26

{
  "ok": true,
  "verdict": "mismatch",
  "confidence": "high",
  "matched": {
    "title": "Fabricated citations: an audit across 2.5 million biomedical papers",
    "DOI": "10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3",
    "type": "article-journal"
  },
  "mismatches": [
    { "field": "title", "claimed": "A Novel Deep Learning Framework...", "resolved": "Fabricated citations...", "similarity": 0.12 }
  ],
  "_provenance": { "stages_run": ["compare"], "resolved_via": "crossref" }
}

curl -sS -X POST https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/verify \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"claimed":{"title":"A Novel Deep Learning Framework for Real-Time Citation Verification","doi":"10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3"}}'

/api/retraction-check

Resolves a single identifier (DOI / PMID / PMCID / arXiv / ADS bibcode) to a DOI and returns its retraction / correction / expression-of-concern status, sourced from Crossref updated-by (Retraction Watch). Takes a single id; result is null when no DOI could be resolved.

200 OK

{
  "ok": true,
  "doi": "10.1056/nejmoa2033700",
  "result": {
    "isRetracted": false,
    "hasCorrections": false,
    "hasConcern": false,
    "notices": [],
    "title": "Efficacy and Safety of the mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine"
  }
}

curl -sS -X POST https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/retraction-check \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id":"10.1056/nejmoa2033700"}'

/api/oa-check

Resolves a single identifier to a DOI and returns its open-access status, sourced from Unpaywall - OA status (gold/green/hybrid/bronze/closed), the best legal landing / PDF URL, license, and version when available.

200 OK

{
  "ok": true,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2",
  "result": {
    "isOa": true,
    "oaStatus": "hybrid",
    "title": "Array programming with NumPy",
    "bestLocation": {
      "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2649-2.pdf",
      "hostType": "publisher",
      "license": "cc-by",
      "version": "publishedVersion"
    },
    "locations": []
  }
}

curl -sS -X POST https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/oa-check \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id":"10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2"}'

Headers & limits

• X-Scholar-Cache: BYPASS or ENABLED
• Rate limiting: X-RateLimit-* + Retry-After (HTTP 429 on excess).
• Content types: JSON for API responses; streamed NDJSON on /api/format/stream; exporter returns appropriate Content-Type + Content-Disposition.

Pricing & free tier

Anonymous calls work without a key for evaluation. For higher limits and a monthly quota, sign up via RapidAPI. The BASIC tier is free.

All tiers include 10,240 MB/month of bandwidth, then $0.001/MB. A call to any endpoint counts as one request.

Per-IP burst protection runs alongside the monthly quota and scales with tier (BASIC base, PRO ×2, ULTRA ×4, MEGA ×8). Each response carries IETF RateLimit-* and legacy X-RateLimit-* headers plus Retry-After on 429 so you can pace from the client.

Related pages

• Help & Limits
• MCP Server
• Scholarly Glossary - definitions for DOI, PMID, BibTeX, RIS, CSL, and the rest of the terms in this doc
• Compare to other citation tools - how Scholar Sidekick relates to Zotero, EndNote, and other citation libraries
• Browser extension - Chrome and Edge add-on built on the same API
• RapidAPI listing
• API Terms