# /osf/nodes/search

`POST /api/osf/nodes/search`

Price: 20 credits

Search public OSF projects by title, description, tag, subject, category, parent project, contributor, preprint attachment and creation or modification date. Returns each project's GUID, title, description, category, subjects, tags, licence record and dates.

## How to use it

`title_contains` and `description` match a substring, `tag` and `subject` match a whole term, so a partial tag returns nothing rather than a near miss. OSF rejects a filter it does not recognise with a 422 from this endpoint rather than ignoring it, but it accepts an unknown `sort` silently and serves the default order, so trust `sort` only with the values offered here. Rows carry no authors — take a GUID to /osf/nodes for the contributor list and the DOI, and feed a contributor's GUID back as `contributor_id` to gather everything that researcher works on. Anonymous listing covers public projects only. Combine filters rather than walking a broad query: an unfiltered listing spans hundreds of thousands of projects, and a project carries no ranking you could use to pick among them.

## Parameters

- `access-token` (string, required)

## Request body

- `timeout` (integer) — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
- `title_contains` (string, nullable) — Keep only projects whose title contains this text (examples: "climate"; minLength: 1)
- `description` (string, nullable) — Keep only projects whose description contains this text (examples: "replication"; minLength: 1)
- `tag` (string, nullable) — Keep only projects carrying this tag, matched exactly (examples: "covid"; minLength: 1)
- `subject` (string, nullable) — Keep only projects filed under this subject taxonomy term (examples: "Psychology"; minLength: 1)
- `category` (string, nullable) — Keep only projects of this category (one of: "project", "analysis", "communication", "data", "hypothesis", "instrumentation", "methods and measures", "procedure", "software", "other")
- `parent_id` (string, nullable) — Keep only the direct children of this project GUID (examples: "jsd4k"; minLength: 1)
- `contributor_id` (string, nullable) — Keep only projects this OSF user GUID is a contributor on (examples: "pr4by"; minLength: 1)
- `has_preprint` (boolean, nullable) — Keep only projects that do, or do not, have a preprint attached
- `created_since` (string, nullable) — Keep only projects created on or after this date, as YYYY-MM-DD (examples: "2026-01-01"; minLength: 1)
- `modified_since` (string, nullable) — Keep only projects changed on or after this date, as YYYY-MM-DD (examples: "2026-01-01"; minLength: 1)
- `sort` (string) — Field the results are ordered by (default: "date_modified"; one of: "date_created", "date_modified", "title")
- `sort_direction` (string) — Ordering direction (default: "desc"; one of: "desc", "asc")
- `count` (integer, required) — Max number of results (examples: 100; min: 1; max: 500)

## Response

### 200 — Successful Response

- `@type` (string) (default: "OsfNode")
- `id` (string, required)
- `url` (string, required)
- `description` (string, nullable)
- `category` (string, nullable)
- `created_at` (string, nullable)
- `modified_at` (string, nullable)
- `tags` (array) (default: [])
- `subjects` (array) (default: [])
  - `@type` (string) (default: "OsfSubject")
  - `id` (string, required)
  - `text` (string, required)
  - `path` (array) (default: [])
- `custom_citation` (string, nullable)
- `license_record` (object, nullable)
  - `@type` (string) (default: "OsfLicenseRecord")
  - `year` (string, nullable)
  - `copyright_holders` (array) (default: [])
- `is_public` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_fork` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_collection` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_preprint` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_registration` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_wiki_enabled` (boolean, nullable)
- `are_access_requests_enabled` (boolean, nullable)

## Errors

### 422 — Validation Error

The request body did not validate

What to do: Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.

- `detail` (array)
  - `loc` (array, required)
  - `msg` (string, required)
  - `type` (string, required)
  - `input` (any)
  - `ctx` (object)

### 408

The request ran past its time limit

What to do: Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.

### 412

The entity was not found, or a precondition failed

What to do: Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.

### 429

Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted

What to do: When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.

### 500

Something broke on our side

What to do: Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.

### 529

Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded

What to do: Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

## Response envelope

Success: Array of objects (may be empty if no results)

Error: Error may coexist with partial results if it occurs mid-execution. Check X-Error header and status code.

Every response carries these headers:

- `X-Error` — Error message text (present only on error)
- `X-Request-ID` — Unique request identifier
- `X-Execution-Time` — Execution time in seconds
- `X-Result-Count` — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
- `X-Total-Available-Results` — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
- `X-Warning` — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
- `X-Retry-After` — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.