> For clean Markdown of any page, append `.md` to the page URL.
> Documentation index: https://you.com/docs/llms.txt (section indexes: append `/llms.txt` to any section URL).
> Search these docs: Docs MCP at https://you.com/docs/_mcp/server (`searchDocs`, no API key).
> Call live You.com APIs: Product MCP at https://api.you.com/mcp (keyless `?profile=free` exposes `you-search` and `you-discover`. Research and finance use `/mcp/research`, `/mcp/finance`, or `?tools=` on `/mcp`). To pick an API or integration path, call `you-discover` on that server instead of guessing.
> OpenAPI: https://you.com/docs/openapi.json—auth header `X-API-Key`, env `YDC_API_KEY`.

## Background Mode for Long-Running Research Tasks

The Research API now supports a `background` parameter on `POST /v1/research`. Set `background: true` to queue the request as an asynchronous task and receive a task handle immediately, instead of waiting for the final answer inline. Poll `GET /v1/research/{task_id}` for status and results, or stream real-time progress via `GET /v1/research/{task_id}/stream` using Server-Sent Events.

Background mode works with `deep`, `exhaustive`, and `frontier` effort levels. It's the recommended approach when research may exceed client-side timeouts.

Read the background mode guide

## New `frontier` Research Effort Level

A new `frontier` effort level is available for long-running, deep research tasks that require the maximum compute budget. Frontier is priced at \$1,200 per 1k requests, with latency ranging from 30s to 12000s (p50: 300s).

Frontier requires `background: true` — synchronous requests with `research_effort: "frontier"` return `422`. Structured output via `output_schema` is supported.

View the effort levels table