API & MCP
Everything a person can do on Drake Equation Explorer (Monte Carlo), a program or AI agent can do with the same inputs and get the identical result.
HTTP API
POST https://prooflinedrake.usefulweb.app/api/v1/calculate– run Drake Equation Explorer (Monte Carlo)GET https://prooflinedrake.usefulweb.app/api/v1/tool– inputs, output schema, examples- OpenAPI 3.1: /openapi.json · /openapi.yaml
- Errors:
application/problem+json;422includes per-fielderrors.
Drake Equation Explorer (Monte Carlo)
Explore the Drake equation N = R* · fp · ne · fl · fi · fc · L with ranges instead of single guesses. The star formation rate, the fraction of stars with planets and the number of habitable-zone rocky planets default to published measurements; life, intelligence, detectability and lifetime are your assumptions. A seeded Monte Carlo gives the median N, the 90 % range, the share of draws with N < 1 and which factor drives the uncertainty. Part of the Proofline math notebook.
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
rStar | text | "0.68 - 1.65" | R*: Sun-like stars formed per year in the Milky Way. A value or a range “low - high” (per year). Default from Robitaille & Whitney 2010; Licquia & Newman 2015. |
fp | text | "0.5 - 1" | fp: Fraction of those stars with planets. A value or a range “low - high”. Default from Cassan et al. 2012 (microlensing). |
ne | text | "0.37 - 0.88" | ne: Habitable-zone rocky planets per planetary system. A value or a range “low - high”. Default from Bryson et al. 2021 (Kepler DR25). |
fl | text | "0.001 - 1" | fl: Fraction of those planets where life appears. A value or a range “low - high”. Default from assumption (no measurement exists). |
fi | text | "0.001 - 1" | fi: Fraction of life-bearing planets that develop intelligence. A value or a range “low - high”. Default from assumption (no measurement exists). |
fc | text | "0.01 - 1" | fc: Fraction of intelligent species that become detectable. A value or a range “low - high”. Default from assumption (no measurement exists). |
L | text | "100 - 100000000" | L: Years a civilisation stays detectable. A value or a range “low - high” (years). Default from assumption (no measurement exists). |
distribution | select (loguniform, uniform) | "loguniform" | Sampling of the ranges |
samples | integer | 100000 | Monte Carlo draws |
seed | integer | 1 | Random seed |
Example request
Measured astronomy plus wide assumptions (defaults)
curl -X POST https://prooflinedrake.usefulweb.app/api/v1/calculate -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{}'Every result contains
inputs (normalised, defaults applied), summary, result (validated against the published schema), units, assumptions, sources, warnings, computedAt and links.
MCP (Model Context Protocol)
- Streamable HTTP endpoint:
https://prooflinedrake.usefulweb.app/mcp– protocol revisions 2026-07-28 (stateless) and 2025-11-25 / 2025-06-18 / 2025-03-26 (initialize handshake). - Tools:
proofline_drake - Local stdio connector:
node src/mcp-stdio.ts --tool=proofline-drake
{
"mcpServers": {
"proofline-drake": { "type": "http", "url": "https://prooflinedrake.usefulweb.app/mcp" }
}
}