Endpoints Overview

Every OpenAlex entity has a REST endpoint under https://api.openalex.org/. They all work the same way: request the plural path for a list (filter, search, sort, group, page), or add an ID for a single entity. The query mechanics are the same across every endpoint — see Filtering, Searching, Sorting, Grouping, Paging, and Selecting fields.

This page is the index. What each entity is, and what every field on it means, lives on its Entities page — follow the links.

Entity endpoints

Endpoint List / single What it returns
/works /works · /works/W… Works — scholarly documents
/authors /authors · /authors/A… Authors — the people who create works
/sources /sources · /sources/S… Sources — journals, conferences, repositories
/institutions /institutions · /institutions/I… Institutions — universities, companies, and more
/publishers /publishers · /publishers/P… Publishers — the organizations behind sources
/funders /funders · /funders/F… Funders — research funders
/awards /awards · /awards/G… Awards — specific grants

Aboutness endpoints

Endpoint What it returns
/topics Topics — ~4,500 fine-grained subjects
/subfields Subfields — 252 mid-level subjects
/fields Fields — 26 broad disciplines
/domains Domains — the 4 top-level branches
/keywords Keywords — short topic-derived phrases
/sdgs SDGs — the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals
/concepts Concepts (deprecated — use Topics)

Vocabulary endpoints

Endpoint What it returns
/work-types Work types
/source-types Source types
/institution-types Institution types
/countries Countries
/continents Continents
/languages Languages
/licenses Licenses
/indexes Indexes

Special-purpose endpoints

Endpoint What it does
/autocomplete/{entity} Fast type-ahead suggestions — see Autocomplete
/text Tag arbitrary text with topics, keywords, and SDGs — see Tagging text
/collections Create and manage saved collections — see Collections API
/curations Submit corrections — see Author curation and Curations

OQL and OQO

Beyond REST, OpenAlex answers the same queries through OQL (a readable query language) and its machine-readable twin OQO. Every query surface — REST, OQL, the web builder — transpiles to the same OQO under the hood; see Querying.

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