RCSB PDB
RCSB Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB) is a scientific data resource providing free, open access to the 3D structural data of biological macromolecules including proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies. It serves researchers worldwide through a suite of programmatic APIs covering data retrieval, full-text and attribute search, sequence and structure similarity search, molecular model data access, volumetric electron density maps, sequence coordinate alignments, and structure alignment calculations.
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 RCSB PDB the way a machine reads it — 13 machine-readable artifacts across 7 APIs, 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 — RCSB PDB scores 32.7/100 (thin), with a separate agent-readiness read of 39/100 (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 RCSB PDB
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for RCSB PDB. 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 7
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.
RCSB PDB Data API
Provides structured access to the complete RCSB PDB holdings via REST and GraphQL interfaces. Given a known PDB identifier, callers can retrieve rich JSON metadata about entries...
RCSB PDB Sequence Coordinates API
GraphQL service providing sequence-level alignments between structural databases and external sequence resources. Exposes two core queries — alignment and annotations — enabling...
RCSB PDB Structure Alignment API
Asynchronous REST API that performs programmatic structure alignment calculations between PDB entries or user-supplied coordinate files. Callers submit an alignment job via POST...
RCSB PDB General API
The General API from RCSB PDB — 12 operation(s) for general.
RCSB PDB Metadata Service API
The Metadata Service API from RCSB PDB — 3 operation(s) for metadata service.
RCSB PDB Search Service API
The Search Service API from RCSB PDB — 2 operation(s) for search service.
RCSB PDB Suggest Service API
The Suggest Service API from RCSB PDB — 1 operation(s) for suggest service.
Scroll within the panel for all 7 ·
GraphQL 1
Where a provider ships GraphQL, the schema is the contract. We profile it alongside the REST surface so the whole interface is legible in one place.
GraphQL schemas published by this provider.
RCSB Protein Data Bank GraphQL API
The RCSB PDB GraphQL API provides flexible, field-selective access to the complete structural biology holdings of the Protein Data Bank. Callers can retrieve richly nested metad...
GRAPHQLPricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Pdb Plans Pricing
PLANSRate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
Pdb Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSFinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Pdb Finops
FINOPSSecurity Posture 1
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.
Agentic Access 1
An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.
Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.
Resources
Every other property we hold for RCSB PDB — 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 1
Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call
Documentation 1
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Agent Surfaces 1
MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs
Design & Contract 1
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Build 3
SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with
Access & Security 1
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Operate 3
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
Other 2
Properties that don't map to a standard resource type
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