Cognito
Cognito (cognitohq.com, operated by BlockScore, Inc.) is an identity verification, KYC, and AML compliance API provider that was backed by Y Combinator and Battery Ventures and acquired by Plaid in 2020. Its API turns a phone number, name, or ID document into a verified identity in under a minute, covering 209 countries and thousands of document types. Three developer products sit on one REST API: Identity (phone-first, frictionless verification), Flow (an all-in-one hosted / embeddable verification experience integrated in minutes with document and selfie checks), and Screening (watchlist, sanctions, and politically-exposed-person AML screening with daily re-scans across 20+ lists). The API is JSON:API (application/vnd.api+json), date-versioned via a Cognito-Version header, and authenticated with HTTP request signatures (HMAC-SHA256 over a digest of the body). It ships a sandbox host, signed webhooks, and client SDKs for seven languages.
Limited machine-readable signal and partial portal coverage — documentation a human can read, but little a machine or agent can consume without scraping.
API Evangelist profiles Cognito the way a machine reads it — 6 machine-readable artifacts across 1 API, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — Cognito scores 41.9/100 (thin), with a separate agent-readiness read of 35/100 (agent aware). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.
Kin Score
How this is scored →scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
How we profile Cognito
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for Cognito. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 1
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
Cognito Identity Verification API
REST API for identity verification, KYC, and AML watchlist/PEP screening. JSON:API media type (application/vnd.api+json), date-based versioning via the Cognito-Version header, a...
MCP Servers 1
Model Context Protocol servers expose these APIs directly to AI agents. We profile them because agent-native access is the fastest-growing way this provider's capabilities actually get used.
Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.
cognito-mcp.yml
MCP SERVEREvent Specifications 1
Not every API is request/response. AsyncAPI describes the event-driven and streaming side — the webhooks and channels — so the asynchronous half of the interface is documented the same way the synchronous half is.
AsyncAPI definitions for this provider's event-driven and streaming APIs.
Cognito Flow Webhooks
ASYNCAPISecurity Posture 3
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Resources
Every other property we hold for Cognito — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Get Started 4
Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call
Documentation 2
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Agent Surfaces 2
MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs
Design & Contract 7
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Scroll within the panel for all 7 ·
Build 1
SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with
Access & Security 4
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Operate 4
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Commercial 2
Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use
Company 1
The organization behind the API
← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/cognito · machine-readable index on apis.io