Parallel AI Research Tool

4 APIs for research: Search (web), Extract (URLs), Task (structured data), Deep Research (analysis)

Setup

API Key: https://platform.parallel.ai Store in: .env.local as PARALLEL_API_KEY=your-key

Load API key (Windows/Git Bash compatible):

bash

API_KEY=$(grep "^PARALLEL_API_KEY=" .env.local | cut -d= -f2)

Usage in curl:

bash

curl -s -X POST "https://api.parallel.ai/v1beta/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "parallel-beta: search-extract-2025-10-10" \
  -d '{"objective": "your query"}'

The 4 APIs at a Glance

API	Purpose	Speed	Cost	Use For
Search	Web search + excerpts	5-60s	$0.01	Quick lookups
Extract	Scrape specific URLs	5-30s	$0.01	Pricing, data
Task	Structured enrichment	1-25m	$0.01-0.30	Companies, data
Deep Research	Multi-source analysis	5-25m	$0.10-0.30	Markets, reports

Processors (Pick One)

Processor	Speed	Cost/1K	When
lite	5-60s	$5	Simple Q&A
base	15-100s	$10	Quick data
core	1-5m	$25	Detailed
pro	3-9m	$100	Analysis
ultra	5-25m	$300	Deep

Endpoint URLs

code

POST https://api.parallel.ai/v1beta/search       (web search)
POST https://api.parallel.ai/v1beta/extract      (URL scraping)
POST https://api.parallel.ai/v1beta/tasks/runs   (research tasks)
GET  https://api.parallel.ai/v1beta/tasks/runs/{id}  (check status)

Required Headers (All Requests)

code

x-api-key: your-api-key
Content-Type: application/json
parallel-beta: search-extract-2025-10-10     (only Search/Extract)

Minimal Examples

Search: {"objective": "your question"}

Extract: {"url": "https://...", "objective": "what to extract"}

Task: {"input": "company name", "processor": "core"}

Task Status: GET /v1beta/tasks/runs/{task_id}

Task Polling Loop

code

Create task → get id
Poll every 2-5s: GET /v1beta/tasks/runs/{id}
Status: "running" → keep polling
Status: "completed" → use result
Status: "failed" → check error

Limits & Errors

•Rate limit: 2,000 req/min → HTTP 429 (wait, retry)
•Invalid key: HTTP 401
•Bad request: HTTP 400 (check parameters)
•Server error: HTTP 500/503 (retry)

See api-reference.md for complete endpoint docs See quick-reference.md for troubleshooting See research-workflows.md for real examples