Desktop Research Search

GET /desktop/research/search runs one query across the research sources and returns each source's answer on its own. The desktop Search tab is its consumer.

• Local only. Served on the local server (http://127.0.0.1:7878 by default). A caller that is not on loopback, or a request carrying a Forwarded, X-Forwarded-For, X-Forwarded-Host or X-Real-IP header, gets 403. On the hosted service, anonymous callers get 401 from the app-wide gate.
• Read-only. Nothing is written to the database and nothing is captured. No token or header value is returned.

Request

Parameter	Required	Default	Notes
q	yes	none	1 to 300 characters. Otherwise 422 with a plain message.
sources	no	openalex,semantic_scholar,arxiv,github_repos	Comma list of openalex, semantic_scholar, arxiv, github_repos, github_code. An unknown name returns ok: false with reason unknown source.
limit	no	10	Results per source. Capped at 25.

GET /desktop/research/search?q=protein%20folding&sources=openalex,arxiv&limit=5

Response

{
  "query": "protein folding",
  "sources": {
    "openalex": {
      "ok": true,
      "reason": "",
      "results": [
        {
          "id": "W1234567890",
          "title": "Example paper",
          "authors": ["A. Author"],
          "year": 2024,
          "url": "https://example.org/paper",
          "source": "openalex",
          "abstract": "At most 400 characters."
        }
      ]
    },
    "github_code": {
      "ok": false,
      "reason": "GitHub rate limit reached for public search; try again in a minute",
      "results": []
    }
  }
}

Each result has exactly id, title, authors, year (an integer or null), url (https), source and abstract.

Behavior

• A source that fails returns ok: false with one plain reason. The other sources still return. Raw exception text and upstream URLs are never echoed.
• arxiv falls back to OpenAlex, then Semantic Scholar, when arXiv refuses or cannot be reached from the server. ok stays true and reason says where the results came from.
• GitHub sources work without a token (public search). A rate limit is reported as a plain reason.
• Each source has a 45-second limit, so one slow upstream cannot hold the tab open.