Is API DOI deposit (POST /api/pubs/{pubId}/doi) supported?

[contact-uj]

Hi! We're using the PubPub API to automate some workflows for The Unjournal community.

We can deposit DOIs successfully through the web UI, but when calling the API endpoint:

POST /api/pubs/{pubId}/doi

We get:
{"error":"Cannot destructure property 'username' of 'depositTarget' as it is undefined."}

Questions:

1. Is this endpoint officially supported for external API use?
2. If so, is this error a bug we should report?
3. If not, is there a supported way to trigger DOI deposits programmatically (perhaps via the SDK)?

We have ~78 pubs needing DOI re-deposit and would love to automate this rather than clicking through the UI individually.

Thanks!

(Note: Claude helped compose this message, but I've checked that it makes sense - David)

[tefkah]

Hi!

1. API

Sorry, the API docs are kind of misleading on that front, that API is only for when you have registered a custom Datacite DOI prefix with us. The correct API is POST /api/doi. We currently do not have documentation regarding this API, nor are we able to offer support for using it I'm afraid.

You are free to try it out, the body expects something like

{
	"target": "pub",
  	"pubId": "d20da423-90f2-42c9-9852-e893f4c319c0",
	"communityId":"0417b0c0-cd38-48bd-8a84-b0b95da98813",
	"contentVersion":"vor", // optional
	"reviewType":"editor-report", // only for Pubs that have an `isReview` relation
	"reviewRecommendation":"reject" // only for Pubs that have an `isReview` relation
}

2. Issues with current DOIs

Unfortunately we recently discovered that it's possible that Review-type deposits have silently failed in the past.
This is because Crossref expects the target of a Review relation to either have, or contain a valid DOI. We did not properly check for this in previous versions, but do so now.

Eg see https://unjournal.pubpub.org/dash/pub/evalsumlimitedmeadprod/settings/doi

This should now show a warning that it will not deposit correctly, and you should also see that 10.21428/d28e8e57.6be96b7b does not resolve properly.

We are sorry for this, but are not able to provide (free) support for these cases at the moment.

An upcoming PR (#3475) will provide some better error messages both in the UI and through the API with instructions on how to fix them.

Unfortunately a very tricky situation can occur in cases like the above, as both the "parent" review Pub and the "child" supplement review pubs will have non-existing DOIs. The only way to currently fix this situation is as follows:

1. disconnect the “Evaluation X: ” supplement Pubs from the parent “Evaluation Summary of …” Pub
2. Make sure "Evaluation Summary..."'s Review relation has a valid DOI attached to it (you can confirm this in the DOI UI).
3. Deposit the parent “Evaluation Summary of…” Pub.
4. Connect “Evaluation 1: …” to the parent Pub again as a supplement. Deposit “Evaluation 1: …”
5. Repeat step 4 for each of the child/supplement Pubs

We are very sorry that this is such a hassle!

3.

Thanks for disclosing that you used an LLM to write the message!