# Academic Search via Semantic Scholar

> Academic Search via Semantic Scholar is a paid API for AI agents from ZeroClick x402 Service Registry at academic.withzero.ai, paid per call via MPP, $0.001/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-10, last successful call 2026-05-05).

Searches academic papers using Semantic Scholar, returning titles, authors, abstracts, citation counts, and links filtered by year range and field of study.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://academic.withzero.ai/run?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.001/call
- Payment: MPP
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-10
- Last successful call: 2026-05-05
- Success rate: 10% of calls made through Zero
- Activations on Zero: 10
- Provider: ZeroClick x402 Service Registry
- Website: https://withzero.ai
- Tags: search, academic, papers, research, citations, science
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/zeroclick-x402-service-registry-academic-search-156933ca
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_mx8YLLCmwJN5V5BcBkcgb

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 zeroclick-x402-service-registry-academic-search-156933ca -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Find me up to 15 recent academic papers on transformer architectures in Computer Science published between 2021 and 2024, including their abstracts and citation counts.

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need structured metadata from peer-reviewed academic literature, especially when you want citation counts, abstracts, and year/field filters in a single call. Prefer this over general web search when the user specifically wants scholarly sources indexed by Semantic Scholar. It requires no API key and costs only $0.001 per call, making it ideal for lightweight or high-frequency research queries.

## Known failure modes

- Empty results if query matches no indexed papers — resultCount will be 0
- Null abstract if Semantic Scholar has no abstract stored for that paper
- Null pdfUrl if no open-access PDF is available
- Null year or publicationDate for older or incomplete records
- Rate limiting or upstream Semantic Scholar API errors returning a non-200 response
- Payment failure if insufficient USDC balance for the $0.001 per-call fee

## How this service works

Search academic papers across Semantic Scholar (default), arXiv, PubMed, and OpenAlex. Input: query plus optional source, year range, field of study, and limit. Output: papers normalized to a single shape with titles, authors, abstracts, citation counts, and links.

## Output

A JSON object containing the original query, a result count, and an array of up to 50 papers each with title, author list, abstract, publication year, citation count, journal name, publication date, a Semantic Scholar URL, and an open-access PDF URL if available.

## Example request

```json
{
 "limit": 10,
 "query": "machine learning",
 "maxYear": 2024,
 "minYear": 2020,
 "fieldsOfStudy": "Computer Science"
}
```

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "required": [
  "query"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "limit": {
   "type": "integer",
   "default": 10,
   "maximum": 50,
   "minimum": 1,
   "description": "Maximum results to return (default: 10)"
  },
  "query": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "Search topic or keywords"
  },
  "source": {
   "enum": [
    "semantic_scholar",
    "arxiv",
    "pubmed",
    "openalex"
   ],
   "type": "string",
   "default": "semantic_scholar",
   "description": "Upstream source. Defaults to Semantic Scholar (existing behavior)."
  },
  "maxYear": {
   "type": "integer",
   "maximum": 2030,
   "minimum": 1900,
   "description": "Maximum publication year (inclusive)"
  },
  "minYear": {
   "type": "integer",
   "maximum": 2030,
   "minimum": 1900,
   "description": "Minimum publication year (inclusive)"
  },
  "fieldsOfStudy": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "Field of study filter (e.g. \"Computer Science\", \"Medicine\"). Supported by semantic_scholar and openalex."
  },
  "openAccessOnly": {
   "type": "boolean",
   "description": "OpenAlex-only filter. Restricts results to OA papers."
  }
 },
 "additionalProperties": false
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "required": [
  "query",
  "source",
  "resultCount",
  "results"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "query": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "The query that was searched"
  },
  "source": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "Platform name"
  },
  "results": {
   "type": "array",
   "items": {
    "type": "object",
    "required": [
     "title",
     "authors",
     "abstract",
     "year",
     "citationCount",
     "url",
     "pdfUrl",
     "journal",
     "publicationDate"
    ],
    "properties": {
     "url": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Canonical link to the paper"
     },
     "year": {
      "type": "number",
      "nullable": true,
      "description": "Publication year"
     },
     "title": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Paper title"
     },
     "pdfUrl": {
      "type": "string",
      "nullable": true,
      "description": "Open access PDF URL if available"
     },
     "authors": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "description": "List of author names"
     },
     "journal": {
      "type": "string",
      "nullable": true,
      "description": "Journal or venue name"
     },
     "abstract": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Paper abstract (empty string if unavailable)"
     },
     "citationCount": {
      "type": "number",
      "description": "Number of citations (0 if source does not expose it)"
     },
     "publicationDate": {
      "type": "string",
      "nullable": true,
      "description": "Publication date (YYYY-MM-DD when known)"
     }
    },
    "additionalProperties": false
   }
  },
  "resultCount": {
   "type": "number",
   "description": "Number of results returned"
  }
 },
 "additionalProperties": false
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/zeroclick-x402-service-registry-academic-search-156933ca/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from academic.withzero.ai](https://www.zero.xyz/host/academic.withzero.ai/llms.txt)