# DevMatch API — Find Engineer Candidates

> DevMatch API — Find Engineer Candidates is a paid API for AI agents from mcp.dev-match.xyz, paid per call via x402, $1.25/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-14).

Finds and ranks software engineers by verified open-source contributions given a job description, informal brief, or GitHub repo URL.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://mcp.dev-match.xyz/tools/find_candidates
- Price: $1.25/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-14
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/devmatch-api-find-engineer-candidates-d955be1b
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_Eper9xCFMVZDyef2Phr6x

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 devmatch-api-find-engineer-candidates-d955be1b -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Search DevMatch for up to 30 Rust systems engineers who'd be a good fit for this role — we need someone strong in async Rust and distributed systems — and exclude anyone from the 'tokio-rs' org.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need to discover software engineers ranked by actual, verifiable open-source contributions rather than self-reported resumes or recruiter databases. It is especially useful when you have a GitHub repo URL as a reference point, or when you want to filter out candidates from specific organizations. Prefer it over generic job board APIs when signal quality and public-work verification matter.

## Known failure modes

- Empty candidates array if no engineers match the job description or filters
- Malformed or non-existent GitHub repo URL returns error or zero results
- Limit exceeding 50 is rejected with a validation error
- Payment failure (insufficient USDC balance or x402 protocol error) blocks the call
- Overly narrow exclusion lists may reduce results to zero

## How this service works

Pay-per-call access to engineers who uniquely fit a role, matched on open-source contributions and other public work, with evidence.

## Output

Returns a JSON object with a 'candidates' array (up to the requested limit) each containing the engineer's name, GitHub login, profile URL, bio, and location, plus a total_count of matches found.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "Job description, informal brief, or public github.com repo URL"
  },
  "limit": {
   "type": "integer",
   "maximum": 50,
   "minimum": 1,
   "description": "Max candidates (default 20, max 50)"
  },
  "exclude": {
   "type": "array",
   "items": {
    "type": "string"
   },
   "description": "GitHub logins or orgs to exclude"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "view": "candidates",
  "candidates": [
   {
    "bio": "Rust systems engineer",
    "name": "Example Dev",
    "login": "example_dev",
    "html_url": "https://github.com/example_dev",
    "location": "Remote"
   }
  ],
  "total_count": 20
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/devmatch-api-find-engineer-candidates-d955be1b/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from mcp.dev-match.xyz](https://www.zero.xyz/host/mcp.dev-match.xyz/llms.txt)