Build agentic search endpoints with an agent

Critique API is the all-in-one agentic search endpoint builder. Give a coding agent one natural-language research task and it can create a fully functioning, hosted endpoint with live web search, source retrieval, citations, structured JSON, and a callable contract. Critique handles the search crawler, retrieval pipeline, model workflow, structured-output layer, and endpoint deployment. The agent creates the endpoint, reads the server-returned schemas and examples, calls it immediately, and integrates it into your project with ordinary HTTPS.

Set up your agent

Create an API key

Create a key under Billing & API Keys, then make it available to your coding agent as an environment variable.

export CRITIQUE_API_KEY="your-api-key"

Never paste the key into a prompt, source file, URL, or commit.

Open agent setup

Open API Studio and select Set up an agent beside the manual API description form.

Copy prompt copies the current, server-provided integration prompt.
Open ChatGPT or Open Claude copies the prompt and opens a new chat.
Download skill downloads the transport-neutral create-critique-apis instructions and API contract.

A browser chat can help plan the endpoint, but it still needs a connected tool or coding environment that can read CRITIQUE_API_KEY and make HTTPS requests in order to create or run one.

Give the agent your requirement

Describe the reusable behavior, required inputs, exact output fields, freshness requirements, and preferred sources. For example:

Create a private API that accepts a company name and returns its latest funding round, amount, date, investors, and primary-source URLs. Then show me how to call it from this project.

Use the skill without a CLI

The skill works through ordinary authenticated HTTPS requests. It can use curl, JavaScript fetch, an IDE HTTP tool, or the existing HTTP client in any project language. Python and the Critique CLI are not required. The agent reads the lifecycle contract from the skill, sends X-API-Key: $CRITIQUE_API_KEY, and uses the integration object returned by the server as the source of truth for running the new endpoint.

Install the CLI (optional)

The optional, open-source CLI package is critique-api-cli and has no third-party runtime dependencies. Its source is available on GitHub.

pipx install critique-api-cli
critique-api --help

The CLI is a standalone convenience for terminal workflows. It does not need to be installed into the user’s application or added to that project’s dependencies. After setting CRITIQUE_API_KEY:

critique-api create \
  --prompt "For a company name, return its latest funding round, investors, date, amount, and primary-source citations."

Install the skill

The downloaded archive contains a SKILL.md and the API contract reference. Import the create-critique-apis folder using your agent client’s skill workflow. No language runtime or package installation is required:

curl --fail-with-body \
  --output create-critique-apis.zip \
  https://api.critique-labs.ai/agent-integrations/create-critique-apis.zip
unzip create-critique-apis.zip

The integration prompt and resource URLs are also available without authentication for automated discovery:

curl --fail-with-body https://api.critique-labs.ai/v1/agent-integration

Endpoint lifecycle

All management and runtime requests use the X-API-Key header. These examples assume CRITIQUE_API_KEY is set in the environment.

Create

The only required create field is original_prompt.

curl --fail-with-body --request POST \
  https://api.critique-labs.ai/v1/design-api \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "X-API-Key: $CRITIQUE_API_KEY" \
  --data '{
    "original_prompt": "For a company name, return its latest funding round, investors, date, amount, and primary-source citations."
  }'

The response is wrapped in response. Treat response.integration as the authoritative handoff: it contains the final callable URL, authentication contract, request and response JSON Schemas, an example request, runnable code, and a short agent handoff.

{
  "response": {
    "id": 42,
    "api_name": "Latest company funding",
    "stub": "latest-company-funding",
    "inputs": [{ "name": "company", "type": "string" }],
    "output_format": {
      "company": "string",
      "amount": "number",
      "date": "string",
      "investors": [{ "name": "string" }]
    },
    "integration": {
      "method": "POST",
      "url": "https://api.critique-labs.ai/v1/user-defined-service/latest-company-funding",
      "request_schema": {},
      "response_schema": {},
      "example_request": { "company": "<company>" },
      "code": {
        "curl": "...",
        "python": "...",
        "javascript": "..."
      },
      "agent_handoff": "..."
    }
  }
}

Do not construct the runtime URL from the stub when an integration.url is available. The server-returned integration object is the source of truth.

Inspect and modify

# List your private endpoints
curl --fail-with-body \
  --header "X-API-Key: $CRITIQUE_API_KEY" \
  https://api.critique-labs.ai/v1/design-api

# Inspect one endpoint
curl --fail-with-body \
  --header "X-API-Key: $CRITIQUE_API_KEY" \
  https://api.critique-labs.ai/v1/design-api/42

# Send only the fields that should change
curl --fail-with-body --request PATCH \
  https://api.critique-labs.ai/v1/design-api/42 \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "X-API-Key: $CRITIQUE_API_KEY" \
  --data '{
    "inputs": [{ "name": "company", "type": "string" }],
    "output_format": {
      "company": "string",
      "amount": "number",
      "announced": "boolean",
      "investors": [{ "name": "string" }]
    }
  }'

Input names must begin with a letter or underscore and may contain letters, numbers, and underscores. Supported input types are string, number, and boolean. Output formats support nested objects and one-item array schemas in addition to string, number, boolean, and integer values.

Run

POST a body matching integration.request_schema to integration.url:

curl --fail-with-body --request POST \
  https://api.critique-labs.ai/v1/user-defined-service/latest-company-funding \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "X-API-Key: $CRITIQUE_API_KEY" \
  --data '{ "company": "OpenAI" }'

A successful runtime response contains the structured result, its source list, and usage information:

{
  "response": {
    "company": "OpenAI",
    "amount": 6600000000,
    "date": "2024-10-02",
    "investors": [{ "name": "Thrive Capital" }]
  },
  "context": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "metadata": {
        "title": "Source title",
        "url": "https://example.com/source",
        "content": "Relevant source content"
      }
    }
  ],
  "info": { "token_usage": 123 }
}

Preserve context when displaying or storing researched output so its source URLs remain available to users.

Delete

Deletion is permanent. Confirm the endpoint ID before calling:

curl --fail-with-body --request DELETE \
  --header "X-API-Key: $CRITIQUE_API_KEY" \
  https://api.critique-labs.ai/v1/design-api/42

Optional domain controls

Runtime bodies may include include_domains or exclude_domains as an array of domain strings. They are mutually exclusive.

{
  "company": "OpenAI",
  "include_domains": ["openai.com", "sec.gov"]
}

Error handling

400 or 422: correct the request or schema; do not retry unchanged.
401: verify that CRITIQUE_API_KEY is available without printing it.
404: list endpoints and confirm that the ID belongs to the current key.
429: respect the rate limit before retrying.
504: the research request exceeded the service deadline.

See API rate limits for current plan limits.

​Set up your agent

​Use the skill without a CLI

​Install the CLI (optional)

​Install the skill

​Endpoint lifecycle

​Create

​Inspect and modify

​Run

​Delete

​Optional domain controls

​Error handling

Set up your agent

Use the skill without a CLI

Install the CLI (optional)

Install the skill

Endpoint lifecycle

Create

Inspect and modify

Run

Delete

Optional domain controls

Error handling