# Agent Tools Scholarly Paper Search

> Agent Tools Scholarly Paper Search is a paid API for AI agents from agents.crowdspark.me, paid per call via x402, $0.006/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-31).

Search academic papers by keyword or DOI and return structured metadata including title, authors, year, venue, citations, open access links, and retraction flags

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://agents.crowdspark.me/v1/research/papers?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.006/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-31
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/agent-tools-scholarly-paper-search-db0e6a17
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_4-dtcFaAfaUrp-qklUjyU

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability agent-tools-scholarly-paper-search-db0e6a17
```

Example prompt: Search for the top 10 most-cited papers on retrieval augmented generation published since 2020, and make sure to include only open access ones — I want titles, authors, abstracts, citation counts, and PDF links.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need structured scholarly paper metadata including citation counts, retraction flags, and open access PDF links — particularly for research agents doing literature reviews, citation analysis, or verifying paper provenance. It is preferable over a general web search when you need machine-readable bibliographic data with filtering by year or open access status. The OpenAlex + Crossref dual-source approach gives broad coverage across disciplines.

## Known failure modes

- Invalid or malformed DOI returns empty results or fallback to Crossref with no match
- Query too broad returns generic results with very high total_matches but low relevance
- Open access filter combined with narrow year range may return zero results
- Rate limit exceeded on free tier (25 calls/day per IP) returns 402 Payment Required unless payment header is included
- Limit parameter outside 1-25 range may be clamped or return an error
- Very recent papers may not yet be indexed in OpenAlex and return no results

## How this service works

Pay-per-call utilities for AI agents over x402, USDC on Base.

## Output

A JSON object containing an array of matching papers, each with DOI, title, authors, year, venue, abstract, citation count, open access status, open access URL or PDF link, and retraction flag, plus total match count and data source attribution (OpenAlex CC0).

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "q"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "q": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Search words, or a DOI such as 10.1038/nature14539"
      },
      "sort": {
       "enum": [
        "relevance",
        "citations",
        "newest"
       ],
       "type": "string"
      },
      "limit": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "1 to 25, default 10"
      },
      "to_year": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Optional latest year"
      },
      "from_year": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Optional earliest year, e.g. 2020"
      },
      "open_access": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "true to keep only open access papers"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "papers": [
   {
    "doi": "10.1234/example.5678",
    "year": 2024,
    "title": "Example paper on retrieval augmented generation",
    "venue": "Example Journal",
    "authors": [
     "A. Author",
     "B. Author"
    ],
    "doi_url": "https://doi.org/10.1234/example.5678",
    "abstract": "A short abstract of the paper.",
    "citations": 181,
    "retracted": false,
    "open_access": true,
    "authors_total": 2,
    "open_access_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/0000.00000"
   }
  ],
  "source": "OpenAlex (CC0)",
  "returned": 1,
  "total_matches": 136358
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/agent-tools-scholarly-paper-search-db0e6a17/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from agents.crowdspark.me](https://www.zero.xyz/host/agents.crowdspark.me/llms.txt)