Semantic Scholar

Bulk search (up to 10M results, token-based pagination):

curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/search/bulk?query=CRISPR+gene+editing&fields=title,year,citationCount"

Paper Lookup by Identifier

# DOI
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/DOI:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2?fields=title,abstract,authors,year,citationCount"
# arXiv ID
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/ARXIV:2301.07041?fields=title,abstract,year"
# PubMed ID
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/PMID:34265844?fields=title,abstract,year"

Citation Graph

# Papers that cite a given paper
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/ARXIV:2301.07041/citations?fields=title,year,citationCount&limit=20"
# Papers cited by a given paper
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/ARXIV:2301.07041/references?fields=title,year,citationCount&limit=20"

Author Search

# Search by name
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/author/search?query=yann+lecun&fields=name,hIndex,paperCount,citationCount"
# Author papers
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/author/1688681/papers?fields=title,year,citationCount&limit=20"

Recommendations

# Single-paper
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/recommendations/v1/papers/forpaper/ARXIV:2301.07041?fields=title,year,citationCount&limit=10"
# Multi-paper (POST)
curl -s -X POST "https://api.semanticscholar.org/recommendations/v1/papers/" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"positivePaperIds": ["ARXIV:2301.07041", "ARXIV:2302.13971"], "negativePaperIds": []}'

Available Fields

Paper: paperId, title, abstract, year, venue, citationCount, referenceCount, influentialCitationCount, isOpenAccess, openAccessPdf, fieldsOfStudy, publicationTypes, publicationDate, journal, url, externalIds, tldr

Nested: authors.name, authors.authorId, citations.title, references.title

Rate Limits

• Without API key: 100 requests per 5 minutes
• With API key: 1/sec sustained, 10/sec burst
• Register free at: https://www.semanticscholar.org/product/api#api-key
• HTTP 429 on rate limit; back off and retry

Ready-to-Use Query Templates

Find recent high-impact papers on a topic

curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/search?\
query=YOUR+TOPIC&limit=10&year=2023-2025&minCitationCount=10&\
fields=title,authors,year,citationCount,influentialCitationCount,tldr,venue,isOpenAccess,openAccessPdf,externalIds" \
| python3 -c "
import sys, json
data = json.load(sys.stdin)
print(f'Found {data[\"total\"]} papers')
for i, p in enumerate(data['data']):
    authors = ', '.join(a['name'] for a in (p.get('authors') or [])[:3])
    tldr = (p.get('tldr') or {}).get('text', 'N/A')[:120]
    doi = (p.get('externalIds') or {}).get('DOI', 'N/A')
    print(f'[{i+1}] {p[\"title\"]}')
    print(f'    {authors} ({p.get(\"year\")}) {p.get(\"venue\",\"\")}  Cited:{p[\"citationCount\"]}')
    print(f'    TLDR: {tldr}')
    print(f'    DOI: {doi}')
    print()
"

Build citation graph for a paper

PAPER_ID="DOI:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2"  # or ARXIV:2301.07041 or S2 ID
# Who cites this?
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/${PAPER_ID}/citations?\
fields=title,year,citationCount,venue&limit=20" | python3 -c "
import sys,json; data=json.load(sys.stdin)
print(f'{len(data[\"data\"])} citing papers:')
for c in sorted(data['data'], key=lambda x: x['citingPaper'].get('citationCount',0), reverse=True)[:10]:
    p=c['citingPaper']
    print(f'  [{p.get(\"year\",\"?\")}] {p[\"title\"][:80]} (cited:{p.get(\"citationCount\",0)})')
"

Find open access PDF for a paper

curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/DOI:10.xxxx/xxxxx?\
fields=title,isOpenAccess,openAccessPdf" | python3 -c "
import sys,json; p=json.load(sys.stdin)
pdf = p.get('openAccessPdf',{})
if pdf: print(f'OA PDF: {pdf[\"url\"]}')