# Urantia Papers API

> Free, open REST API for structured access to the Urantia Book

The Urantia Papers API provides developer and AI-agent friendly access to all 197 papers, 1,626 sections, and 14,500+ paragraphs of the Urantia Book with full-text search and multi-voice audio narration.

## Base URL

https://api.urantia.dev

## Authentication

No authentication required. Free and open access.

## Rate Limits

100 requests per minute per IP address.

## Endpoints

### Table of Contents
- GET /toc — Full table of contents (parts, papers, titles)

### Papers
- GET /papers — List all 197 papers with metadata
- GET /papers/:id — Get a single paper with all paragraphs
- GET /papers/:id/sections — Get sections for a paper

### Paragraphs
- GET /paragraphs/random — Get a random paragraph
- GET /paragraphs/:ref — Get a specific paragraph by reference
- GET /paragraphs/:ref/context?window=3 — Get paragraph with surrounding context (window: 1-10)

### Search
- POST /search — Full-text search across all paragraphs
  - Body: {"q": "search terms", "type": "and|or|phrase", "limit": 10}
  - Filters: paperId, partId
- POST /search/semantic — Semantic similarity search using vector embeddings
  - Body: {"q": "natural language query", "limit": 10}
  - Filters: paperId, partId
  - Returns results ranked by similarity score (0-1), finds conceptually related passages even without exact keyword matches

### Audio
- GET /audio/:paragraphId — Get audio URLs for a paragraph

## Paragraph Reference Formats

Three formats are auto-detected:
- globalId: partId:paperId.sectionId.paragraphId (e.g., 1:2.0.1)
- standardReferenceId: paperId:sectionId.paragraphId (e.g., 2:0.1)
- paperSectionParagraphId: paperId.sectionId.paragraphId (e.g., 2.0.1)

## Audio

Every paragraph has audio narration. Models: tts-1-hd, tts-1. Voices: nova, echo, onyx, alloy, fable, shimmer. Full coverage with tts-1-hd/nova. Audio served from audio.urantia.dev via Cloudflare CDN.

## MCP Server

The API includes a built-in MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for AI agents:

https://api.urantia.dev/mcp

Add to any MCP-compatible client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf):

{"mcpServers":{"urantia-papers":{"url":"https://api.urantia.dev/mcp"}}}

Exposes 13 tools (dot-notation): toc.get, papers.list, papers.get, papers.sections, paragraphs.random, paragraphs.get, paragraphs.context, search.fulltext, search.semantic, entities.list, entities.get, entities.paragraphs, audio.get. Plus 2 resource templates (urantia://paper/{id}, urantia://entity/{id}) and 2 prompt templates (study_assistant, comparative_theology). No API key required. Uses Streamable HTTP transport.

## OpenAPI Specification

https://api.urantia.dev/openapi.json

## Interactive Documentation

https://api.urantia.dev/docs (Swagger UI)

## Related Sites

- Documentation: https://urantia.dev
- Reading Platform: https://urantiahub.com
- Reader App: https://urantiapapers.com

## About the Urantia Book

The Urantia Book (published 1955) contains 197 papers organized in four parts:
- Part I: The Central and Superuniverses (Papers 1-31)
- Part II: The Local Universe (Papers 32-56)
- Part III: The History of Urantia (Papers 57-119)
- Part IV: The Life and Teachings of Jesus (Papers 120-196)

The Foreword is Paper 0.