Zenodo API Guide

Overview

Zenodo is an open-access digital repository developed by CERN and funded by the European Commission. It enables researchers to deposit datasets, software, publications, reports, and any other research-related digital artifacts. Zenodo assigns each upload a DOI, ensuring long-term citability and discoverability of research outputs across all academic disciplines.

The Zenodo API provides programmatic access to the full repository, including the ability to search records, retrieve metadata, create depositions, upload files, and manage communities. It follows FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and integrates with GitHub for automatic software archiving.

Researchers, data librarians, and research infrastructure teams use the Zenodo API to automate data publishing workflows, build data discovery tools, integrate archiving into CI/CD pipelines, and harvest metadata for institutional repositories. Zenodo supports versioning, access controls, and rich metadata schemas including DataCite Metadata Schema.

Authentication

Authentication is required for most write operations and for accessing restricted records. Zenodo uses personal access tokens.

1. Create an account at https://zenodo.org/
2. Navigate to Settings > Applications > Personal access tokens
3. Generate a token with appropriate scopes (deposit:write, deposit:actions)
4. Include the token in requests via the access_token query parameter or Authorization header