Michigan State University

Michigan State University (MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States, ranked #89 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Like most large research institutions, MSU does not operate a single consolidated public developer portal; its confirmed public API footprint is concentrated in the MSU Libraries platforms, which expose a VuFind REST API (OpenAPI 3.0) for the library catalog and OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoints for the catalog and the digital repository. Identity is provided through a Shibboleth/SAML Identity Provider with OAuth 2.0 support, and MSU maintains official GitHub organizations for the university and for MSU Libraries. Most administrative, student, and research-profile interfaces are gated behind institutional affiliation rather than offered as open self-service APIs.

Michigan State University publishes 2 APIs on the APIs.io network: Record API and Search API. Tagged areas include Education, Higher Education, University, Library, and Open Data.

The Michigan State University catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.

Michigan State University’s developer surface includes GitHub presence, authentication, engineering blog, and 10 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

39.3/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 31/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

AccessFree

5 APIs

EducationHigher EducationUniversityLibraryOpen DataMetadataUnited StatesMichigan

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

Composite quality — 39.3/100 · thin

Contract Quality 12.7 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 4.3 / 20

Commercial Clarity 5.8 / 20

Operational Transparency 3.4 / 13

Governance 7.0 / 12

Discoverability 7.4 / 10

Agent readiness — 31/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/michigan-state-university: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 5

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

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Michigan State University Rate Limits

1 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

JSON Schema 2

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Examples 2

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Build 2

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHub

GitHub

SourceCode

SourceCode

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 3

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

LinkedIn

Blog

Blog

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Review

Review

Source (apis.yml)

aid: michigan-state-university
name: Michigan State University
description: 'Michigan State University (MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United
  States, ranked #89 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Like most large research institutions, MSU does not operate
  a single consolidated public developer portal; its confirmed public API footprint is concentrated in the MSU Libraries platforms,
  which expose a VuFind REST API (OpenAPI 3.0) for the library catalog and OAI-PMH 2.0 endpoints for the catalog and the digital
  repository. Identity is provided through a Shibboleth/SAML Identity Provider with OAuth 2.0 support, and MSU maintains official
  GitHub organizations for the university and for MSU Libraries. Most administrative, student, and research-profile interfaces
  are gated behind institutional affiliation rather than offered as open self-service APIs.'
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Free
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/michigan-state-university.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/michigan-state-university/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Library
- Open Data
- Metadata
- United States
- Michigan
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: michigan-state-university:catalog-oai
  name: MSU Libraries Catalog OAI-PMH
  description: OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting endpoint for the "Michigan State University Libraries Catalog" repository,
    exposing bibliographic metadata for harvesting.
  humanURL: https://catalog.lib.msu.edu/OAI/Server?verb=Identify
  baseURL: https://catalog.lib.msu.edu/OAI/Server
  tags:
  - Library
  - Metadata
  - OAI-PMH
  - Harvesting
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://catalog.lib.msu.edu/OAI/Server?verb=Identify
- aid: michigan-state-university:dlib-oai
  name: MSU Libraries Digital Repository OAI-PMH
  description: OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting endpoint for the "MSU Libraries Digital Repository" (d.lib.msu.edu), exposing
    descriptive metadata for digital collections.
  humanURL: https://d.lib.msu.edu/oai?verb=Identify
  baseURL: https://d.lib.msu.edu/oai
  tags:
  - Library
  - Repository
  - Metadata
  - OAI-PMH
  - Digital Collections
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://d.lib.msu.edu/oai?verb=Identify
- aid: michigan-state-university:idp
  name: MSU Identity Provider (Shibboleth / SAML / OAuth 2.0)
  description: MSU's federated single sign-on service. The Shibboleth Identity Provider issues SAML 2.0 assertions and the
    institution also supports OAuth 2.0 for application authentication and authorization. Access requires registered service-provider/application
    integration and institutional affiliation rather than open self-service.
  humanURL: https://tech.msu.edu/network/authentication-authorization/
  baseURL: https://idp.idm.msu.edu/idp/shibboleth
  tags:
  - Identity
  - Authentication
  - SSO
  - Shibboleth
  - SAML
  - OAuth
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://tech.msu.edu/network/authentication-authorization/
- aid: michigan-state-university:michigan-state-university-record-api
  name: Michigan State University Record API
  description: The Record API from Michigan State University — 3 operation(s) for record.
  humanURL: https://catalog.lib.msu.edu/api/v1
  baseURL: https://catalog.lib.msu.edu/api/v1
  tags:
  - Record
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/michigan-state-university-record-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://catalog.lib.msu.edu/api/v1
  - type: x-json-schema
    url: json-schema/michigan-state-university-record-schema.json
  - type: x-json-schema
    url: json-schema/michigan-state-university-searchresponse-schema.json
  - type: x-json-structure
    url: json-structure/michigan-state-university-record-structure.json
  - type: x-example
    url: examples/michigan-state-university-search-example.json
  - type: x-example
    url: examples/michigan-state-university-record-example.json
  - type: x-spectral-rules
    url: rules/michigan-state-university-rules.yml
  - type: x-vocabulary
    url: vocabulary/michigan-state-university-vocabulary.yml
  - type: x-json-ld-context
    url: json-ld/michigan-state-university-context.jsonld
- aid: michigan-state-university:michigan-state-university-search-api
  name: Michigan State University Search API
  description: The Search API from Michigan State University — 3 operation(s) for search.
  humanURL: https://catalog.lib.msu.edu/api/v1
  baseURL: https://catalog.lib.msu.edu/api/v1
  tags:
  - Search
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/michigan-state-university-search-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://catalog.lib.msu.edu/api/v1
  - type: x-json-schema
    url: json-schema/michigan-state-university-record-schema.json
  - type: x-json-schema
    url: json-schema/michigan-state-university-searchresponse-schema.json
  - type: x-json-structure
    url: json-structure/michigan-state-university-record-structure.json
  - type: x-example
    url: examples/michigan-state-university-search-example.json
  - type: x-example
    url: examples/michigan-state-university-record-example.json
  - type: x-spectral-rules
    url: rules/michigan-state-university-rules.yml
  - type: x-vocabulary
    url: vocabulary/michigan-state-university-vocabulary.yml
  - type: x-json-ld-context
    url: json-ld/michigan-state-university-context.jsonld
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/michigan-state-university-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/michigan-state-university-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.msu.edu
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/Michigan-State-University
- type: SourceCode
  url: https://github.com/MSU-Libraries
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/michigan-state-university/
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://tech.msu.edu/network/authentication-authorization/
- type: Authentication
  url: https://idp.idm.msu.edu/idp/shibboleth
- type: Plans
  url: plans/michigan-state-university-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/michigan-state-university-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/michigan-state-university-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
- url: https://msutoday.msu.edu/rss
  type: Blog
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com