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 is listed with 2 APIs on the APIs.io network: Models API and Chat Completions API. Tagged areas include Company, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, LLM, and Inference.

The Nous Research catalog on APIs.io includes 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Nous Research’s developer surface includes pricing, authentication, documentation, API reference, signup flow, engineering blog, support, and 18 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

29.9/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 23/100 agent aware Front door AI 4/6 moderate Heartbeat 100/100 alive saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try

2 APIs 2 Agent Skills

Company Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning LLM Inference Agents Open Weights x402 Foundation Models

Kin Score

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

Composite quality — 29.9/100 · thin

Contract Quality 2.5 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 5.8 / 15

Access Clarity 7.5 / 15

Operational Transparency 0.3 / 10

Contract Governance 1.6 / 9

Discoverability 5.5 / 8

Regulatory Posture 2.3 / 15

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 23/100 · 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

Pagination 0 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the AI & Biometrics 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 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.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% 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):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship
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)
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Rate-Limit Signaling +7 pts — OpenAPI responses document X-RateLimit-* / RateLimit headers (verified), else a rate_limits artifact or RateLimits link (documented)
Request/Response Examples +7 pts — share of operations carrying request/response examples; else an Examples / Code Samples link
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document

9 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

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

Contract Quality scores 13.5 — up to +21.6 composite points
Operational Transparency scores 2.6 — up to +12.7 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 38.7 — up to +12.3 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/nous-research/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/nous-research 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 →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
Agent Skills (SKILL.md packages)	covered	17.2 (thin)	-	2
x402 Micropayments & Agentic Pay-per-Call	covered	17.2 (thin)	-	2

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 2

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.

x402

tagged — the provider's own APIs.json carries the standard as a tag; implementation not verified

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 2

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

Nous Research Models API

Model discovery and catalog.

Nous Research Chat Completions API

OpenAI-compatible chat completions.

Open Collections 2

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

Nous Research Inference API (Nous Portal) Chat API

OPEN COLLECTION

Nous Research Inference API (Nous Portal) Chat Models API

OPEN COLLECTION

Agent Skills 2

Packaged agent skills for driving this provider's APIs from an AI assistant.

Generate a chat completion with a Nous model

AGENT SKILL

Discover available Nous inference models

AGENT SKILL

Nous Research API pricing

Prices published by Nous Research, read 2026-10-07 from portal.nousresearch.com/manage-subscription.

Plan	Price
Free	$0 Includes: Free models only; Standard rate limits; $0 monthly credits
Plus	$20 per month Includes: $22 monthly credits; $10 rollover cap; 200+ Models; Hosted tool usage; High rate limits; 10% bonus
Super	$100 per month Includes: $110 monthly credits; $50 rollover cap; 200+ Models; Hosted tool usage; High rate limits; 10% bonus
Ultra	$200 per month Includes: $220 monthly credits; $100 rollover cap; 200+ Models; Hosted tool usage; High rate limits; 10% bonus

Plan details, limits and sources →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Nous Research Plans Pricing

4 plans

PLANS

Service Levels 1

Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.

Nous Research

SLA

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Nous Research API Rules

43 rules · 41 errors 1 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

OpenAPI Overlays 1

Overlays applied on top of this provider's contracts. Each card says who wrote it: a document the provider publishes, or one API Evangelist derived or generated.

Nous Research Inference Api Overlay

3 actions · update · nous-research-inference-api-openapi.yml

DERIVED

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

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Pricing

Pricing

Plans

Plans

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: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  gated: none
  gated_source:
  - onboarding
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  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
- LLM
- Inference
- Agents
- Open Weights
- x402
- Foundation Models
tags_raw:
- Company
- Ai
- Machine Learning
- Large Language Models
- Inference
- Agents
- Open Weights
- x402
- Machine-Learning
- Foundation Models
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
apis:
- 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
- aid: nous-research:nous-research-chat-completions-api
  name: Nous Research Chat Completions API
  description: OpenAI-compatible chat completions.
  humanURL: https://portal.nousresearch.com/docs
  baseURL: https://inference-api.nousresearch.com/v1
  tags:
  - Chat Completions
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/nous-research-chat-completions-api-openapi.yml
  - type: InterfaceLicense
    url: https://portal.nousresearch.com/docs
common:
- type: Pricing
  url: https://portal.nousresearch.com/manage-subscription
- type: Plans
  url: plans/nous-research-plans-pricing.yml
- 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

Nous Research API — frequently asked questions

Does Nous Research have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 2 APIs from Nous Research, including Nous Research Models API and Nous Research Chat Completions API.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Nous Research API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 2 OpenAPI specifications for Nous Research, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the Nous Research API?

Nous Research uses bearer-token authentication (http · 1 scheme). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Nous Research Authentication.

How much does the Nous Research API cost?

Nous Research publishes its prices; its Free plan is $0 as of 2026-10-07. APIs.io lists 4 pricing plans for Nous Research, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the Nous Research API ready for AI agents?

Nous Research has a Kin Score of 29.9 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 23.1 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

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