Documentation
Everything about the registry in one place: what a registrant needs to know, first steps for programs, and the schemas every record is held to.
For registrants
- The registrant's handbook — a DOI in five steps, keeping it right, withdrawing and transferring, fees and timings.
- The policies — naming, metadata, persistence and withdrawal, privacy, registrant terms, fees; every version kept.
- The rules — the states a name can be in, the checks before registration, the ledger, resolution.
- The Smart Scholars DOI Metadata Format 1.0 — the record every DOI is registered with.
- The DOI System Metadata — what every DOI name carries, kind of work by kind of work.
- The quality procedure — every control between a name being taken and a DOI resolving.
- Governance — who runs the registry, how its rules change, and what happens to every DOI if it stops.
- The continuity copy — every DOI, record and change, written out every night.
Help and news
- Questions: mou@smartscholars.in, answered within two working days.
- The community — questions and suggestions, discussed in the open.
- Status — whether the registry and its Handle server are answering, and over the last 90 days.
- The change feed (Atom; RSS) — every registration, new version, new address and withdrawal.
- The full API reference — every call, reading and writing.
First steps for programs
Reading needs no key and no account: every DOI's record is public. Each answer below comes from the live registry; the DOI is one it holds. Replace it with any other.
- One record, as JSON — its state, where it resolves, its version, who holds it and the full record:
curl "https://registry.smartscholars.in/api.php?action=get&doi=10.46243/jst.2025.v10.i12.pp35-41"
- Search — by title words, an author, a journal, an ISSN or a year; with counts by year and type:
curl "https://registry.smartscholars.in/api.php?action=search&q=food+printing&per_page=3"
- A citation, by asking the resolver for a format — BibTeX here; also
application/vnd.citationstyles.csl+json,application/x-research-info-systems(RIS) andtext/x-bibliography(APA):curl -H "Accept: application/x-bibtex" "https://registry.smartscholars.in/resolve.php?doi=10.46243/jst.2025.v10.i12.pp35-41"
- The DOI System Metadata declaration — the elements the DOI Handbook gives every DOI name, and whether this record carries them all;
-H "Accept: application/vnd.doi.kernel+xml"instead gives the Kernel Metadata Declaration as XML:curl "https://registry.smartscholars.in/resolve.php?doi=10.46243/jst.2025.v10.i12.pp35-41&as=system"
- Everything at once — what can be downloaded, with the counts; then
as=jsonl(one record a line) oras=csv, for the whole registry or&prefix=one prefix:curl "https://registry.smartscholars.in/bulk.php?as=manifest"
Every API answer is JSON with "ok": true, or "ok": false and the reason in words, and may be read from any web page. Writing — reserving, registering, updating, withdrawing — needs a registrant's sign-in or the registry key; it is in the full reference.
The schema library
| Schema | What it is | Version | Read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smart Scholars DOI Metadata Format | The record every DOI is registered with: every element of the DOI Kernel, and what journals, indexes and readers need. | 1.0 | specification · JSON Schema · Markdown |
| DOI System Metadata | The elements every DOI name carries (DOI Handbook 10.1; ISO 26324:2025, Annex B), and the basic metadata each kind of work needs. | 1.0 | specification · JSON · Markdown |
| DOI Schema (Kernel) | The DOI Foundation's schema for a Kernel Metadata Declaration; every declaration the registry publishes is checked against it. | doi:10.1000/276 | doi.org/10.1000/276 · XSD |
| DOI Schema Attribute Value Sets | The DOI Foundation's lists of allowed values (types, roles, identifiers). | 2.3 (2023), doi:10.1000/282 | doi.org/10.1000/282 · XSD |
What the registry hands out, and in which forms: a record as JSON (api.php?action=get, or the resolver with Accept: application/json); the Kernel Metadata Declaration as XML; the DOI System Metadata declaration as JSON (&as=system); a citation as CSL JSON, BibTeX, RIS or APA (cite.php shows all four); the whole registry as JSON Lines or CSV (bulk.php); the changes as Atom or RSS (feed.php).
