Cerebrum

Cerebrum is a free scientific literature search tool that uses AI to answer questions by querying open scholarly databases such as Europe PMC, PubMed, OpenAlex, and Semantic Scholar. It provides citations with DOIs, offers a learning companion called Nova, and operates without ads or tracking. The service is free with usage limits, and a paid tier removes caps. The platform is independent, built by its founder Dusty, and emphasizes transparency and privacy.

Cerebrum is listed with 1 API on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Artificial Intelligence, Scientific, Search, Open Data, and Education.

Cerebrum’s developer surface includes documentation, pricing, and 10 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

14.7/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 6/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemium

1 API 1 MCP Servers

Artificial Intelligence Scientific Search Open Data Education Company

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 14.7/100 · emerging

Contract Quality 0.0 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 0.8 / 17

Access Clarity 8.1 / 17

Operational Transparency 0.0 / 11

Contract Governance 0.0 / 10

Discoverability 4.8 / 9

Regulatory Posture 1.4 / 15

Agent readiness — 6/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 12 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 4 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Education & Research regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics could not be measured. We hold no machine-readable contract for this provider to read, so there is nothing to measure a write surface against. Excluded rather than scored zero: never-measured and measured-empty are different facts. Publishing an OpenAPI is what makes this facet — and several others — scorable at all.

The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

Machine-Readable Contract +18 pts — api_specs includes an OpenAPI document
Agentic Access Contract +10 pts — agentic_access artifact present (x-agentic-access), graded by author
Machine-Readable Auth +10 pts — a served openid-configuration/oauth-authorization-server carrying `issuer` (served), else the securitySchemes class in the provider OpenAPIs — bound (mutualTLS, DPoP, Signature) > negotiable (oauth2 authorizationCode/clientCredentials, openIdConnect) > bearer (http bearer, apiKey)
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented)
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0

11 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Contract Quality scores 0.0 — up to +25.0 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 4.8 — up to +19.0 composite points
Operational Transparency scores 0.0 — up to +13.0 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/askcerebrum-org/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/askcerebrum-org to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Standards implemented 1

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

measured — observed by APIs.io (documented)

APIs 1

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Cerebrum MCP

Cerebrum MCP provides tool definitions for search_literature and get_trending via JSON-RPC.

MCP Servers 1

Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.

Cerebrum MCP Server

Remote MCP server at askcerebrum.org.

MCP SERVER

Cerebrum API pricing

Prices published by Cerebrum, read 2026-11-01 from askcerebrum.org/pricing.

Plan	Price
Free	$0
Cerebrum Pro (Monthly)	$20 per month
Cerebrum Pro (Annual)	$144 per year
Pro Lite (Monthly)	$3.99 per month
Pro Lite (Annual)	$39 per year
Pro Student	$7.99 per month

Plan details, limits and sources →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Askcerebrum Org Plans Pricing

6 plans

PLANS

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Askcerebrum Org Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS

SECURITY

Resources

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Agent Surfaces 2

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

LLMsTxt

LLMsTxt

MCPServer

MCPServer

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Contact

Contact

Commercial 4

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Pricing

TermsOfService

PrivacyPolicy

Company 1

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Hosts

Hosts

Vendors

Vendors

Source (apis.yml)

aid: askcerebrum-org
name: Cerebrum
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: low
  source:
  - plans
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://askcerebrum.org/og-image.png?v=20261015b
description: Cerebrum is a free scientific literature search tool that uses AI to answer questions by querying open scholarly
  databases such as Europe PMC, PubMed, OpenAlex, and Semantic Scholar. It provides citations with DOIs, offers a learning
  companion called Nova, and operates without ads or tracking. The service is free with usage limits, and a paid tier removes
  caps. The platform is independent, built by its founder Dusty, and emphasizes transparency and privacy.
url: https://artifacts.apis.io/askcerebrum-org/apis.yml
x-type: company
x-source: harvest:mcp-registry
x-tier: profiled
x-tier-reason: enrichment pass 2026-11-01 (modular-v1; was harvest)
specificationVersion: '0.20'
created: '2026-11-01'
modified: '2026-11-01'
tags:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Scientific
- Search
- Open Data
- Education
- Company
tags_raw:
- AI
- Scientific
- Search
- OpenData
- Education
- Company
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
common:
- type: Plans
  url: plans/askcerebrum-org-plans-pricing.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/askcerebrum-org-llms.txt
- type: MCPServer
  url: mcp/askcerebrum-org-mcp.yml
- type: Hosts
  url: hosts/askcerebrum-org-hosts.yml
- type: Vendors
  url: vendors/askcerebrum-org-vendors.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/askcerebrum-org-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://askcerebrum.org/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://askcerebrum.org/docs
- type: Pricing
  url: https://askcerebrum.org/pricing
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://askcerebrum.org/terms
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://askcerebrum.org/privacy
- type: Contact
  url: https://askcerebrum.org/contact
apis:
- name: Cerebrum MCP
  description: Cerebrum MCP provides tool definitions for search_literature and get_trending via JSON-RPC.
  humanURL: https://askcerebrum.org/features
  baseURL: null
  aid: askcerebrum-org:cerebrum-mcp
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-11-01'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 11
  pass: modular-v1
  engine: identity=local,contract=local,surfaces=local,docs=local,regulatory=local

Cerebrum API — frequently asked questions

Does Cerebrum have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 1 API from Cerebrum, including Cerebrum MCP.

How much does the Cerebrum API cost?

Cerebrum publishes its prices; its Free plan is $0 as of 2026-11-01. APIs.io lists 6 pricing plans for Cerebrum, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Does Cerebrum have an MCP server?

Yes. APIs.io lists 1 MCP server for Cerebrum: Remote MCP server at askcerebrum.org.

Is the Cerebrum API ready for AI agents?

Cerebrum has a Kin Score of 14.7 out of 100 (emerging) and an Agent Readiness score of 6.3 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

Work with this as data

Every provider here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.

MCP server

One button, every client — Claude, Cursor, VS Code and the rest.

https://apis.io/mcp

Tools for providers

9 MCP tools reach this

find_providersBrowse and filter every provider in the catalog.
get_provider_artifactsEvery artifact this provider publishes, grouped by type.
get_provider_operationsEvery operation across all of their OpenAPIs — one call instead of parsing every spec.
get_provider_toolsEvery MCP tool they ship, with the operation each wraps.
get_provider_evidenceHow each part of their score was established. Free — the basis for a claim should not sit behind it.
get_provider_ratingPRO — composite, band, trend and facet scores.
apis_io_searchSTART HERE — APIs, providers and tags for one query, each with its total.
resolveTurn a domain, URL or GitHub org into the provider it belongs to.
find_cohortsEvery scored population of providers in the catalog.

All 92 tools →

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Every operation they expose

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How their score was established

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