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verify-citation
x402
verify-citation is a paid API for AI agents from goodsong.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.005/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-14).
Verifies whether a citation exists, checks if it has been retracted, and confirms that title/authors/year/journal metadata match the canonical academic record via Crossref and OpenAlex.
Price / call$0.005
Success—
StatusUnknown
How this service works
Verify a citation: does it exist, is it retracted, and do the given title/authors/year/journal match the canonical record? Checked against Crossref (retraction data included) with OpenAlex as a fallback when no DOI is given.
Output
A structured response indicating whether the cited work exists in Crossref or OpenAlex, whether it has been retracted, and whether the supplied title, authors, year, and journal match the canonical bibliographic record. Discrepancies between provided metadata and the canonical record are flagged.
Example use cases
Retraction check before literature review
“Before I include this paper in my literature review, can you verify it exists and hasn't been retracted? Title is 'Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 prophylaxis', authors Risch et al., published 2020 in the American Journal of Epidemiology.”
Citation accuracy check for manuscript
“I'm proofreading a manuscript and need to confirm this reference is correct — DOI 10.1016/j.cell.2020.02.052, listed as 'SARS-CoV-2 Cell Entry Depends on ACE2 and TMPRSS2' by Hoffmann et al., 2020, in Cell. Does the metadata match the canonical record?”
Automated fact-check for AI-generated references
“My AI assistant cited a paper titled 'Deep Learning for Natural Language Processing' by Goodfellow and Bengio, 2018, in Journal of Machine Learning Research. Can you verify that citation actually exists and the authors and year are correct?”
Technical details
Endpoint
POSThttps://goodsong.dev/verify/citationWhen to prefer
Use this endpoint when you need to validate academic citations for correctness and retraction status, especially before including references in a manuscript, literature review, or fact-checked document. Prefer this over manual lookup when you have structured citation fields (DOI, title, authors, year, journal) and need a programmatic, reliable answer. It is particularly valuable for catching hallucinated AI-generated citations or flagging retracted papers that could undermine research credibility.
Side effects
- DOI not found in Crossref or OpenAlex — returns non-existence result
- Title/author search returns ambiguous multiple matches when no DOI is provided
- Retraction data may lag real-world retractions if not yet indexed in Crossref
- Metadata mismatch may occur for papers with variant title spellings or name formats
- Network timeout or upstream API unavailability from Crossref or OpenAlex
Input
Schema · Request body
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| doi | string | The citation's DOI, if known. |
| year | integer | Publication year. |
| title | string | The work's title. |
| authors | array | Author names, as e.g. ['Jane Doe', 'John Smith']. |
| journal | string | Journal or venue name. |
Tags
x402
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