Nous Research

Nous Research is an AI research and infrastructure company ("The AI Accelerator Company") known for the open-weight Hermes family of language models (including Hermes 4) and for Nous Portal, an OpenAI-compatible inference API served at inference-api.nousresearch.com. The Portal aggregates Nous's own Hermes models alongside a broad catalog of open and frontier third-party models (OpenRouter- style routing, 280+ models) behind a single chat-completions endpoint. Distinctively, the inference API supports the x402 HTTP payment protocol, returning HTTP 402 with a Solana USDC micropayment envelope so agents can pay per request without a pre-provisioned account. Beyond inference, Nous ships the Hermes Agent framework, Atropos RL environments, and Psyche/DisTrO for distributed model training over the internet. Backed by Paradigm.

Nous Research publishes 2 APIs on the APIs.io network: Chat API and Models API. Tagged areas include Company, Artificial Intelligence, Machine-Learning, Large Language Models, and Inference.

Nous Research’s developer surface includes authentication, documentation, API reference, signup flow, engineering blog, support, and 17 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

19.2/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 24/100 agent aware saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0

2 APIs

Company Artificial Intelligence Machine-Learning Large Language Models Inference Agents Open Weights x402

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0

Composite quality — 19.2/100 · emerging

Contract Quality 3.0 / 23

Developer Ergonomics 6.1 / 18

Access Clarity 1.2 / 18

Operational Transparency 0.3 / 12

Contract Governance 0.5 / 11

Discoverability 6.8 / 9

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 24/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 5 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 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

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

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 github.com/api-evangelist/nous-research: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

APIs 2

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

Nous Research Chat API

OpenAI-compatible chat completions.

Nous Research Models API

Model discovery and catalog.

Open Collections 3

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

API Collection

OPEN COLLECTION

Nous Research Inference API (Nous Portal) Chat API

OPEN COLLECTION

Nous Research Inference API (Nous Portal) Chat Models API

OPEN COLLECTION

Security Posture 2

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

Nous Research Authentication

http · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Nous Research Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Nous Research Agentic Access

2 operations · 1 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 2

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

SignUp

SignUp

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

APIReference

APIReference

Agent Surfaces 4

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

X-MCPServerCandidate

X-MCPServerCandidate

AgentSkill

AgentSkill

LLMsTxt

LLMsTxt

Design & Contract 5

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Conventions

ErrorCatalog

Lifecycle

Conformance

DataModel

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Support

Support

Company 4

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Twitter

Twitter

LinkedIn

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Overlay

Overlay

HuggingFace

HuggingFace

Source (apis.yml)

aid: nous-research
name: Nous Research
description: Nous Research is an AI research and infrastructure company ("The AI Accelerator Company") known for the open-weight
  Hermes family of language models (including Hermes 4) and for Nous Portal, an OpenAI-compatible inference API served at
  inference-api.nousresearch.com. The Portal aggregates Nous's own Hermes models alongside a broad catalog of open and frontier
  third-party models (OpenRouter- style routing, 280+ models) behind a single chat-completions endpoint. Distinctively, the
  inference API supports the x402 HTTP payment protocol, returning HTTP 402 with a Solana USDC micropayment envelope so agents
  can pay per request without a pre-provisioned account. Beyond inference, Nous ships the Hermes Agent framework, Atropos
  RL environments, and Psyche/DisTrO for distributed model training over the internet. Backed by Paradigm.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/nous-research/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
x-type: company
x-source: vc-portfolio
x-backed-by:
- paradigm
x-tier: active
x-tier-reason: has-public-api
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source:
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-09-03'
  method: derived
specificationVersion: '0.23'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-20'
image: https://nousresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/android-chrome-512x512-1-300x300.png
tags:
- Company
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine-Learning
- Large Language Models
- Inference
- Agents
- Open Weights
- x402
tags_raw:
- Company
- Ai
- Machine Learning
- Large Language Models
- Inference
- Agents
- Open Weights
- x402
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
apis:
- aid: nous-research:nous-research-chat-api
  name: Nous Research Chat API
  description: OpenAI-compatible chat completions.
  humanURL: https://portal.nousresearch.com/docs
  baseURL: https://inference-api.nousresearch.com/v1
  tags:
  - Chat
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/nous-research-chat-api-openapi.yml
  - type: InterfaceLicense
    url: https://portal.nousresearch.com/docs
- aid: nous-research:nous-research-models-api
  name: Nous Research Models API
  description: Model discovery and catalog.
  humanURL: https://portal.nousresearch.com/docs
  baseURL: https://inference-api.nousresearch.com/v1
  tags:
  - Models
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/nous-research-models-api-openapi.yml
  - type: InterfaceLicense
    url: https://portal.nousresearch.com/docs
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/nous-research-agentic-access.yml
- type: X-MCPServerCandidate
  url: mcp/nous-research-mcp.yml
  note: 'Renamed from MCPServer 2026-09-03 (roadmap#247): the manifest self-describes as status: candidate — a tool list derived
    from the published API contracts, not an existing server. The scorer already read the manifest and reported mcp_server
    correctly; the MCPServer type was crediting the artifact-type surfaces with a server that does not exist.'
- type: AgentSkill
  url: skills/_index.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/nous-research-llms.txt
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/nous-research-conventions.yml
- type: ErrorCatalog
  url: errors/nous-research-problem-types.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/nous-research-lifecycle.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/nous-research-conformance.yml
- type: DataModel
  url: data-model/nous-research-data-model.yml
- type: Overlay
  url: overlays/nous-research-inference-api-overlay.yaml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/nous-research-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/nous-research-authentication.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://nousresearch.com
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://portal.nousresearch.com
- type: Documentation
  url: https://portal.nousresearch.com/docs
- type: APIReference
  url: https://portal.nousresearch.com/docs
- type: SignUp
  url: https://portal.nousresearch.com
- type: Blog
  url: https://nousresearch.com/blog
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/NousResearch
- type: Support
  url: https://discord.gg/jqVphNsB4H
- type: HuggingFace
  url: https://huggingface.co/NousResearch
- type: Twitter
  url: https://twitter.com/nousresearch
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nousresearch/
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-20'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 16
  pass: local-v1

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 →

Call it yourself

curl for this page

This provider

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/nous-research"

All providers

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers?limit=25"

Every operation they expose

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/nous-research/operations?limit=25"

How their score was established

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/nous-research/evidence"

Discovery needs no key. Ratings and market analysis are Pro.

Get an API key

Free tier, no form to fill in. Signing in shares your email address with us — we store it to create your key and to recognise you if you sign in with another provider. See our Privacy Policy and Terms.

GitHub Google LinkedIn

A second provider on the same verified email joins the account you already have.