# Smart Research Search

> Smart Research Search is a paid API for AI agents from api.kadec0.xyz, paid per call via x402, $0.02/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-13).

Auto-routed academic paper search that either grounds a broad field term against OpenAlex taxonomy or runs hybrid retrieval with SPECTER2 reranking for natural-language research questions.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://api.kadec0.xyz/v1/smart-search
- Price: $0.02/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-13
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/smart-research-search-6d50cd48
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_x1p0cTmkv-6pF6PWkuNy0

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 smart-research-search-6d50cd48
```

Example prompt: Search the academic literature for recent papers on retrieval-augmented generation — use the hybrid search with SPECTER2 reranking and return up to 20 results with their citation counts and DOIs.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need intelligent query routing — it automatically decides whether to treat input as a broad field taxonomy lookup or a semantic natural-language question, then applies SPECTER2 reranking for the latter. Prefer it over plain academic search when query intent is ambiguous or when you want the highest relevance quality through hybrid retrieval and reranking, rather than simple keyword matching.

## Known failure modes

- Missing required 'q' parameter returns a 400 error
- Ambiguous query that doesn't clearly map to field term or question may produce lower-quality routing
- Very niche topics with sparse OpenAlex/Semantic Scholar coverage return few or no results
- maxItems out of range (>40 or <1) may cause validation errors
- Network timeout if downstream academic APIs are slow

## How this service works

Smart, auto-routed research paper search. A broad field term is grounded against the OpenAlex taxonomy and returned as a coherent field cluster; a natural-language question runs hybrid retrieval over OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar with reciprocal rank fusion and a SPECTER2 embedding rerank. The response exposes the routing decision, and each paper carries title, authors, year, venue, citation count, DOI, and a relevance score. Keyless.

## Output

Returns a JSON object with the routing decision used (field-grounding vs hybrid retrieval), and a ranked list of up to 40 papers each containing title, authors, publication year, venue, citation count, DOI, and a relevance score.

## 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",
      "HEAD",
      "DELETE"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "q"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "q": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "a field term OR a natural-language research question"
      },
      "rerank": {
       "type": "string",
       "default": "true",
       "description": "apply the SPECTER2 semantic rerank on the hybrid path"
      },
      "maxItems": {
       "type": "string",
       "default": "15",
       "description": "max results (1-40)"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/smart-research-search-6d50cd48/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.kadec0.xyz](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.kadec0.xyz/llms.txt)