🔍 FORRT Replication Database — Lightweight API

The backend for the FORRT Replication Database (lightweight version) is live and ready for testing.
Query the database of replications either via privacy-preserving 3-character DOI hash prefixes or by full original DOIs.

This API powers the Zotero Replication Checker plugin, connecting Zotero items to replication data from the FReD database.

Base URL We have two separate APIs with two different URLs, one serves a Primary, and the URL is(Dev1) :

https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1

The test API URL is(Dev0) :

https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com

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Table of Contents

• Overview
• Quick Start
• Endpoints
  • 1) Prefix Lookup (privacy-preserving)
  • 2) Original DOI Lookup (direct)
• Headers
• Error Responses
• Data Model
• Testing Snippets
• Functions & Source
• Notes

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Overview

• Two lookup modes
  1. Prefix Lookup — search by 3-character hash prefixes of DOIs (privacy-first).
  2. Original DOI Lookup — search by the full original DOI.
• CORS enabled and cacheable responses.

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Quick Start

Lookup by hash prefix (GET)

The "198" is a real hash prefix, and the "30e" does not exist in the database so that we could monitor the API's behaviour.
The Primary API:

curl "https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/prefix-lookup?prefixes=198,30e"

The test API:

curl " https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/prefix-lookup?prefixes=198,30e"

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Lookup by full DOI (GET)

The "10.1037/a0027598" is a real DOI, and the "10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004" does not exist in the database so that we could monitor the API's behaviour.

The Primary API:

curl "https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/original-lookup?doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004,10.1037/a0027598"

The test API:

curl "https://iaq17d1dw6.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/original-lookup?doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004,10.1037/a0027598"

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Endpoints

1) Prefix Lookup (privacy-preserving)

Checks whether any 3-character hashed DOI prefixes match replication families—without exposing full DOIs.

URLs of Primary API

Method	URL
POST	https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/prefix-lookup
GET	https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/prefix-lookup?prefixes=198,30e

URLs of Test API

Method	URL
POST	https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/prefix-lookup
GET	https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/prefix-lookup?prefixes=198,30e

Example Requests

POST of Primary API

curl -X POST "https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/prefix-lookup" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"prefixes":["198","30e"]}'

POST of Test API

curl -X POST " https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/prefix-lookup" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"prefixes":["198","30e"]}'

GET of Primary API

curl "https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/prefix-lookup?prefixes=198,30e"

GET of Test API

curl " https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/prefix-lookup?prefixes=198,30e"

Example Response — 200 OK

{
  "results": {
    "198": [
      {
        "hash_prefix": "198",
        "meta": {
          "original_doi": "10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004",
          "replications": [
            {
              "doi_r": "10.31234/osf.io/abcd1",
              "title_r": "Replication of Priming Effects",
              "author_r": [
                { "given": "Anna", "family": "Smith" },
                { "given": "Brian", "family": "Lopez" }
              ],
              "year_r": 2022,
              "outcome": "failure",
              "url_r": "https://osf.io/abcd1/"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ],
    "30e": []
  }
}

Tip: Each top-level key under results (e.g., "198", "30e") corresponds to one requested prefix.

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2) Original DOI Lookup (direct)

Fetch replication studies directly linked to a full DOI of an original publication.

URLs of Primary API

Method	URL
POST	https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/original-lookup
GET	https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/original-lookup?10.1037/a0027598

URLs of Test API

Method	URL
POST	https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/original-lookup
GET	https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/original-lookup?doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004,10.1037/a0027598

Example Requests

POST of Primary API

curl -X POST "https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/original-lookup" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"dois": ["doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004,10.1037/a0027598"]}'

POST of Test API

curl -X POST " https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/original-lookup" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"dois": ["doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004,10.1037/a0027598"]}'

GET of Primary API

curl "https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/original-lookup?doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004,10.1037/a0027598"

GET of Test API

curl "[https://80zw14hxjc.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/v1/original-lookup?doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004,10.1037/a0027598"

Example Response — 200 OK

{
  "results": {
    "10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004": {
      "prefix": "198",
      "candidate": {
        "hash_prefix": "198",
        "meta": {
          "original_doi": "10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004",
          "replications": [
            {
              "doi_r": "10.31234/osf.io/abcd1",
              "title_r": "Replication of Priming Effects",
              "author_r": [
                { "given": "Anna", "family": "Smith" }
              ],
              "year_r": 2022,
              "outcome": "failure",
              "url_r": "https://osf.io/abcd1/"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

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Headers

Header	Value	Notes
Content-Type	application/json	JSON in/out
Access-Control-Allow-Origin	*	CORS enabled
Cache-Control	public, max-age=3600	Responses cacheable for 1 hour
X-Schema-Version	2	Response schema version

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Error Responses

Prefix Lookup

Status	Description	Example
400	Missing or invalid prefix list	{"error": "No prefixes provided"}
500	DynamoDB / server error	{"error": "Internal Server Error"}

Original DOI Lookup

Status	Description	Example
400	Missing DOI	{"error":"No DOIs provided"}
404	DOI not found	{"results":{"10.1016/j.abc.2020.1":[]}}
500	Internal error	{"error":"Internal Server Error"}

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Data Model

Field	Type	Description
hash_prefix	string	3-character hash of the original DOI
meta.original_doi	string	Full DOI of the original study
meta.replications	array	List of replication entries
replications[].doi_r	string	DOI of the replication
replications[].title_r	string	Title of the replication
replications[].author_r	list/object	Nested author data
replications[].year_r	number	Year of the replication
replications[].outcome	string	Replication result (e.g., success/failure)
replications[].url_r	string	Link to the replication resource

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Testing Snippets

Windows (PowerShell)

Invoke-RestMethod "https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/prefix-lookup?prefixes=198" | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 8

macOS/Linux

curl -s "https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/prefix-lookup?prefixes=198" | jq .

JavaScript (Node)

const res = await fetch("https://rep-api.forrt.org/v1/original-lookup", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({ dois: ["10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.004"] }),
});
console.log(await res.json());

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Functions & Source

Function	Source	Purpose	DynamoDB Table
prefixLookup	src/handler.ts	Looks up replication families via prefix hashes	zotero-replication-backend-prefix
originalLookup	src/original.ts	Looks up replication families via original DOIs	zotero-replication-backend-original

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Notes

• Each response for prefix lookups groups results by the requested prefix key.
• The replications array includes all replication studies for that family as loaded from the FReD CSV (all preserved columns except internal references).