API

Quickstart

1. Zu Dashboard → API-Schlüssel, auf Neuer API-Schlüssel klicken. Den Schlüssel mit Präfix sk_ kopieren — er wird nur einmal angezeigt.
2. Bei jedem Request den Schlüssel im Authorization: Bearer sk_… mitsenden.
3. Einen Task an /verify/v2 POSTen. Die Response ist ein text/event-stream; SSE-Events konsumieren, bis task_completed erscheint.

Minimaler Aufruf:

curl -N -X POST https://api.citetrue.com/verify/v2 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text":"[1] Vaswani, A., Shazeer, N., Parmar (2017). Attention is all you need."}'

-N deaktiviert curl-Buffering, damit SSE-Events zeilenweise streamen. depth muss nicht mehr gesetzt werden — jede Referenz durchläuft denselben Ablauf. Die meisten kosten 1 Credit; knifflige, die mehr Datenquellen und mehr Analyse brauchen, bis zu 5.

Client-Beispiele

SSE ist eine lang laufende HTTP-Response, bei der jedes Event mit einer Leerzeile (\n\n) endet. Zeilen, die nicht mit data: beginnen, überspringen; den Rest per JSON parsen.

Browser-Hinweis: Das eingebaute EventSource kann keinen Authorization-Header senden — verwenden Sie fetch + ReadableStream wie unten gezeigt.

const API = 'https://api.citetrue.com'
const KEY = process.env.API_KEY

async function verify(text) {
  const resp = await fetch(`${API}/verify/v2`, {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Authorization': `Bearer ${KEY}`,
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({ text }),
  })
  if (!resp.ok) throw new Error(`${resp.status}: ${await resp.text()}`)

  const reader = resp.body.getReader()
  const decoder = new TextDecoder()
  const refs = []
  let buf = ''

  while (true) {
    const { value, done } = await reader.read()
    if (done) break
    buf += decoder.decode(value, { stream: true })
    let idx
    while ((idx = buf.indexOf('\n\n')) !== -1) {
      const chunk = buf.slice(0, idx); buf = buf.slice(idx + 2)
      for (const line of chunk.split('\n')) {
        if (!line.startsWith('data: ')) continue
        const evt = JSON.parse(line.slice(6))
        if (evt.event === 'ref_completed') {
          refs.push(evt.data.ref)
        }
        if (evt.event === 'task_completed') return { refs, balance: evt.data.balance }
        if (evt.event === 'error') throw new Error(evt.error)
      }
    }
  }
}

const out = await verify('[1] Vaswani, A., Shazeer, N., Parmar (2017). Attention is all you need.')
console.log(out)

Authentifizierung

API-Schlüssel sind langlebige Bearer-Token der Form sk_<40-char-token>. Im Authorization-Header senden:

Authorization: Bearer sk_AbCd123…

• Schlüssel im Dashboard widerrufen — innerhalb weniger Sekunden wirksam.
• Ein Schlüssel kann alles, was der Besitzer kann. Wie ein Passwort behandeln — pro Integration rotieren und scopen.

Rate-Limits

Jeder API-Key erhält einen Token-Bucket-Limiter:

• Burst: 10 Requests.
• Dauerhaft: 60 Requests / Minute (Bucket füllt mit 1 Token/s nach).
• Bei Überschreitung schlägt der Request mit 429 und Retry-After-Header (Sekunden) fehl.

Das Limit gilt pro Key; unterschiedliche Keys des gleichen Accounts haben unabhängige Buckets. Credits gelten zusätzlich.

Request-Header

Every endpoint accepts the same authentication and content-type headers; only the request body and URL differ.

Responses are 200 OK with Content-Type: text/event-stream.

data: {"event":"<name>","data":{...},"error":""}

POST /verify/v2

Split a text blob into references and verify each. Supply exactly one of text (new task) or taskHash (resume). Every reference goes through the same flow — there is no verification level to choose.

Request-Body

Idempotenz: same text + same user returns the cached task on second POST (no re-billing) unless force: true.

Deprecated fields

• depth — still accepted but ignored (1, 5, 20 or omitted all behave the same). Don't send it.
• refHash + parentTaskHash — legacy single-reference mode kept for older clients. It ignores depth and simply finishes that one reference, billed under the normal rules. New integrations shouldn't use it.

Beispiel-Request (text)

{
  "text": "[1] Vaswani, A., Shazeer, N., Parmar (2017). Attention is all you need.\n[2] Piketty, T. (2016). Capital in the twenty-first century. Harvard University Press."
}

Beispiel-Request (resume)

{
  "taskHash": "f0e1d2c3b4a5..."
}

Typische Event-Abfolge

task_created → refs_created (N refs) →
  [ref_processing + ref_completed] × N (parallel) +
  task_progress × several →
task_completed

Per-ref assessment

Each ref_completed event carries an assessment string from this closed set:

• authentic — paper exists and is the one cited. value contains the matched paper.
• unsure — found something but can't confirm; notices and confidence describe why.
• inauthentic — definitively not found / fabricated / unrelated.
• invalid — input wasn't a citation; pipeline refused to search before any datasource hit.
• error — verification failed on this single ref; sibling refs may still succeed. data.errors[] lists tokens (datasource_unavailable, timeout, rate_limited, parse_failed).
• exceeded — account ran out of credits before this ref could run.

Notices on a result (year mismatch, author mismatch, …) are orthogonal to assessment — even an authentic verdict can carry notices worth showing. data.cost is the total credits this task has charged for the reference (0–5): 1 for most references, up to 5 for tricky ones that needed more data sources and more analysis, 0 if it was already paid for in another task. It covers every connection and resume of the same task, and the same number is sent on every push, replays included — overwrite it, don't add it up across reconnects. data.depth is kept only for compatibility with older clients — ignore it.

SSE-Events

SSE event names emitted during verification. Listen for task_completed as the terminal success event; error for terminal failure.

• task_created — task accepted, hash assigned.
• refs_created — text was split into N refs.
• split_completed — splitting phase finished.
• ref_processing / ref_status — per-ref progress signal.
• ref_completed — per-ref final assessment.
• task_completed — all refs done; carries cost (credits newly charged during this connection, 0 for a pure replay) and the account balance afterwards (can be negative — see Credits & billing).
• task_progress — periodic progress %.
• warn — non-fatal warning.
• error — terminal task-level failure.

GET /credits

GET /credits/v1 — returns current credit balance. Auth required. The balance can be negative (see Credits & billing).

Credits & Abrechnung

Most references cost 1 credit. Tricky ones that need more data sources and more analysis can cost up to 5. Each reference is charged 1 credit when it's queued; anything extra is added when it finishes. Cached tasks (same text + user) do not re-bill.

Reading the charge: data.cost in ref_completed is the running total this task has charged for that reference — the same number is sent again on reconnects and replays, so overwrite it rather than adding it up. cost in task_completed is what this connection newly charged (0 for a pure replay), so after a reconnect it won't equal the sum of the per-ref costs. balance is the account balance afterwards.

Running out: a reference that hasn't started when the balance can't cover it comes back as exceeded, and the task still ends with task_completed. If you run out of credits mid-check, references already in progress still finish; the overage is deducted at your next credit reset, so balance can be negative.

Fehlerreferenz

Standard HTTP status codes apply (400 invalid, 401 auth missing/invalid, 402 insufficient credits, 429 rate-limited, 5xx upstream). SSE-level failures arrive as a final error event.

Versionierung & Stabilität

Path-versioned (/verify/v2 etc.). Breaking changes bump the version segment; backwards-compatible additions ship in-place.