unpaywall.oa.lookup
Look up the open-access status of a scholarly work by DOI and get a direct link to a free, legal full-text copy if one exists — aggregated from 50K+ publisher and repository sources (institutional repositories, PubMed Central, arXiv, publisher OA pages). Returns oa_status (gold/green/hybrid/bronz...
This record as markdown: /tools/io-github-whiteknightonhorse-apibase/unpaywall.oa.lookup.md
What unpaywall.oa.lookup does on Apibase
AI agents call unpaywall.oa.lookup to retrieve information from Apibase without modifying anything. It is typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
doi | string | Yes | DOI of the scholarly work to look up, with or without the "https://doi.org/" prefix (e.g. 10.1038/nature12373) |
Parameters from the server's own tool schema.
Why unpaywall.oa.lookup is rated Low
Retrieves scholarly metadata and publicly available document links without side effects or data modification.
From the tool's definition Look up open-access status, get direct link to free full-text copy, returns oa_status and locations
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
The rule that runs unpaywall.oa.lookup safely
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway: it sits between your AI agents and Apibase, and checks every tool call against a rule you set before the call runs. Nothing changes on the server itself. For unpaywall.oa.lookup, this is the rule to start with:
unpaywall.oa.lookup is read-only, so it stays allowed. Everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
The button opens the PolicyLayer dashboard: create your workspace, connect Apibase, apply this rule, and every unpaywall.oa.lookup call is checked against it from then on.
Questions about unpaywall.oa.lookup
Look up the open-access status of a scholarly work by DOI and get a direct link to a free, legal full-text copy if one exists — aggregated from 50K+ publisher and repository sources (institutional repositories, PubMed Central, arXiv, publisher OA pages). Returns oa_status (gold/green/hybrid/bronze/closed), the best OA location (PDF URL, license, host type, version), and all known OA locations. Complements education.doi_lookup and crossref.works_search (which return bibliographic metadata, not full-text availability). Data: api.unpaywall.org, no auth required (an internal contact email is sent per API terms, not a user credential). It is categorised as a Read tool in the Apibase MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
unpaywall.oa.lookup accepts 1 parameter: doi. Required: doi. The full parameter table on this page comes from the server's own tool schema.
Register the Apibase MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for unpaywall.oa.lookup: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Apibase. Nothing to install.
unpaywall.oa.lookup is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the unpaywall.oa.lookup rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for unpaywall.oa.lookup. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
unpaywall.oa.lookup is provided by the Apibase MCP server (apibase-mcp-client). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
More on Apibase, and thousands of servers like it.
This server
Across the catalogue