Search Semantic Scholar's 200M+ papers via x402 micropayment — citations, abstracts, open-access PDFs.
What it does
The `/scout/scholar` endpoint is part of the Scout Multi-source Intelligence API hosted at scout.hugen.tokyo. It searches Semantic Scholar's corpus of over 200 million academic papers across all disciplines. A single GET request returns paper titles, abstracts, citation counts (including influential citations), author lists, journal names, open-access PDF links, and fields of study. Results can be filtered by publication year or year range and by field of study.
This endpoint is one of 19+ source-specific search endpoints offered by Scout, which also includes aggregated report and AI-synthesized research endpoints. The `/scout/scholar` endpoint costs $0.005 per call (paid in USDC on Base via the x402 protocol). It accepts a required query string parameter `q`, plus optional `per_page` (1–20, default 10), `year` (e.g. "2024" or "2020-2024"), and `fields_of_study` (e.g. "Computer Science"). The endpoint is live and returning a valid 402 payment challenge.
Alternative access methods are available: a broker service at discovery.hugen.tokyo that handles wallet integration for you, an MCP transport at mcp.hugen.tokyo, and a Python SDK (`pip install x402-pay`) for one-line access without wallet setup.
Capabilities
Use cases
- —Finding academic papers and preprints on a specific topic with citation counts
- —Building literature review tools that need structured citation data
- —Augmenting AI agents with access to peer-reviewed research
- —Filtering papers by year range and field of study for trend analysis
- —Retrieving open-access PDF links for downstream summarization
Fit
Best for
- —AI agents needing pay-per-query academic search without API key management
- —Cross-disciplinary literature discovery (covers all fields, not just CS/arXiv)
- —Applications that need citation graph metadata (influential citations, citation counts)
- —Developers who want a simple GET interface to Semantic Scholar with micropayments
Not for
- —Bulk downloading of full-text papers (returns metadata and PDF links, not full text)
- —Free unlimited academic search (each call costs $0.005 in USDC)
- —Searching non-academic content like news, social media, or code repositories
Quick start
# Using the x402-pay Python SDK
pip install x402-pay
import x402_pay
resp = x402_pay.get(
'https://scout.hugen.tokyo/scout/scholar?q=large+language+models&per_page=5&year=2024'
)
print(resp.json())Example
Request
{
"url": "https://scout.hugen.tokyo/scout/scholar?q=large+language+models&per_page=5&year=2024&fields_of_study=Computer+Science",
"method": "GET"
}Response
{
"count": 1,
"query": "large language models",
"source": "semantic_scholar",
"results": [
{
"year": 2020,
"title": "Language Models are Few-Shot Learners",
"citations": 15000
}
]
}Endpoint
Quality
Full OpenAPI schema with clear parameter definitions and a live 402 challenge confirming the endpoint works. The sample response in the challenge is minimal (only one truncated result), and no dedicated docs page exists, so the exact response shape beyond the sample fields is inferred from the schema description. Pricing is clearly documented.
Warnings
- —No dedicated documentation page found (/docs, /api, /pricing all return 404)
- —The full response schema (all returned fields per paper) is not formally specified — only described in prose
- —Sample response from the 402 challenge is minimal and may not represent the complete field set
Citations
- —Searches Semantic Scholar for academic papers across all disciplines (200M+ papers)https://scout.hugen.tokyo
- —Returns title, abstract, citations, influential citations, authors, journal, open access PDF link, and fields of studyhttps://scout.hugen.tokyo
- —Payment required: $0.005 per call in USDC on Basehttps://scout.hugen.tokyo
- —Alternative access via broker, MCP, and Python SDK (x402-pay)https://scout.hugen.tokyo
- —Supports year and fields_of_study filtershttps://scout.hugen.tokyo