# ISHOB Research Brief

> ISHOB Research Brief is a paid API for AI agents from api.ishob.com, paid per call via x402, $0.05/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-14).

Returns a curated research brief on any topic: top papers from ISHOB's archive plus live scholarly search results (250M+ works), with abstracts for open-license papers, metadata and DOIs for the rest, and an AI-written synthesis citing sources.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://api.ishob.com/v1/research-brief?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.05/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-14
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/ishob-research-brief-f376ea6c
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_IBXbtHdm0ilih7vfLj-LH

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 ishob-research-brief-f376ea6c -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you pull me a research brief on transformer-based protein structure prediction — up to 6 papers from 2018 onward, with the AI synthesis included?

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need a fast, citation-grounded literature overview on any academic topic without assembling your own search pipeline. It is ideal when you want both open-access abstracts and metadata-only records in a single response, or when you need an AI synthesis that cites real papers by number. Prefer it over raw search APIs when the goal is a ready-to-use brief rather than raw search results. The free 404 check-before-pay model makes it especially safe to use speculatively on niche topics.

## Known failure modes

- 404 'not_covered' returned free of charge when no papers found in archive or live search for the query
- Query too short (under 3 chars) or too long (over 200 chars) triggers validation error
- max_papers exceeding 8 returns validation error
- Live search may be unavailable causing fallback to archive-only results
- Some papers may have metadata but no abstract if not openly licensed

## How this service works

Research brief on any topic in one call: the best papers from ISHOB's open-licence archive, filled with a live search of 250M+ scholarly works, each with authors, year, venue, DOI and citations; abstracts only for openly licensed papers (CC0 / public domain / CC BY / CC BY-SA), metadata and link for the rest; plus a short AI synthesis citing the papers as [n]. Checked before payment: if nothing is found anywhere the answer is a free 404 'not_covered'.

## Output

A JSON object containing: an AI-generated synthesis text with inline citations like [1][2], an array of papers each with index number, title, year, source (archive or live), licence, reusability flag, and optionally abstract and DOI, plus coverage statistics showing how many papers came from the archive versus live search and how many abstracts are freely reusable.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "query": {
   "type": "string",
   "maxLength": 200,
   "minLength": 3,
   "description": "Research question or topic"
  },
  "year_from": {
   "type": "integer",
   "minimum": 1900,
   "description": "Only papers published in or after this year"
  },
  "max_papers": {
   "type": "integer",
   "default": 5,
   "maximum": 8,
   "minimum": 1
  },
  "synthesize": {
   "type": "boolean",
   "default": true,
   "description": "Add the AI-written brief"
  },
  "include_live": {
   "type": "boolean",
   "default": true,
   "description": "Fill with live results from open scholarly sources when the archive has fewer papers"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "brief": {
   "text": "Recent work attributes degradation mainly to ... [1][3] ...",
   "ai_generated": true
  },
  "papers": [
   {
    "n": 1,
    "year": 2026,
    "title": "Phase Homogeneity and Photothermal Stability in ...",
    "source": "ishob_archive",
    "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
    "reusable": true
   }
  ],
  "coverage": {
   "from_archive": 5,
   "reusable_abstracts": 5
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/ishob-research-brief-f376ea6c/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.ishob.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.ishob.com/llms.txt)