Search endpoint

The ODEN API has one endpoint. You send a query; you get a synthesized answer and ranked citations.

POST https://api.oden-api.com/search
Authorization: Bearer <your-key>
Content-Type: application/json

Request body#

A small JSON object. Only query is required.

Field	Type	Default	Description
`query`	string	—	Required. The question or search phrase. Natural language works best. Max 500 characters.
`answer`	boolean	`true`	Include a synthesized answer in `results.answer`. Send `false` for citations only.
`depth`	string	`advanced`	`advanced` does full passage extraction; `basic` returns faster, snippet-level results.
`include_snippets`	boolean	`false`	Add one attributed sentence per citation in `citations[].snippet`.

{
  "query": "latest EU AI Act enforcement timeline",
  "answer": true,
  "depth": "advanced",
  "include_snippets": true
}

Response body#

Field	Type	Description
`query`	string	Your query, echoed back.
`trace_id`	string	Unique ID for this request. Include it when reporting an issue.
`cached`	boolean	`true` when the result was served from cache. Cached calls are much faster.
`results`	object	The answer and its citations.
`results.answer`	string	Synthesized answer, in the same language as the query. Present unless `answer: false`.
`results.citations`	array	Ranked source list, highest relevance first.
`results.citations[].title`	string	Title of the source page.
`results.citations[].url`	string	Canonical URL of the source.
`results.citations[].score`	number	Relevance from 0 to 1. Higher is closer to the query.
`results.citations[].snippet`	string	One attributed sentence. Present only when `include_snippets: true`.

{
  "query": "capital of sweden",
  "trace_id": "oden-mquycpae-p3thrk",
  "cached": false,
  "results": {
    "answer": "The capital of Sweden is Stockholm, which is also its largest city.",
    "citations": [
      { "title": "Stockholm — Wikipedia", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm", "score": 0.964 }
    ]
  }
}

Choosing depth#

advanced (default) reads the candidate pages and extracts the passages that actually answer the query. Use it when the answer quality matters — RAG context, agent tool calls, anything a user sees.
basic returns snippet-level results faster and cheaper. Use it for autocomplete-style lookups or when you only need to know which sources are relevant.

Notes#

Language follows the query. Ask in Swedish, get a Swedish answer; ask in English, get English, with facts translated from foreign-language sources where needed.
Citations are metadata, not reproduced text. You get titles, URLs and scores — plus one attributed sentence per source if you ask for it. This is what keeps ODEN on the right side of the TDM opt-out.

Next steps#

Work with the output: Answers & citations.
Handle failure: Errors and Rate limits.

Request body#

Response body#

Choosing depth#

Notes#

Next steps#

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