---
title: "Introducing DermLiving: dermatology knowledge for software"
description: "DermLiving is a dermatology knowledge API for software and AI agents, live today as a free, keyless sandbox on synthetic data over REST and MCP."
answer: "DermLiving is a dermatology knowledge API for software and AI agents. It returns structured conditions, ICD-10-CM and ICD-11 mappings, evidence with provenance, and answers that cite a source for every claim or abstain. Today it runs as a free, keyless sandbox on synthetic data at api.dermliving.com, over REST and MCP."
tag: "Launch"
date: 2026-10-12
author: "DermLiving"
read_minutes: 4
url: https://dermliving.com/blog/introducing-dermliving
---

# Introducing DermLiving: dermatology knowledge for software

A dermatology knowledge API for humans and agents, live today as a keyless sandbox on synthetic data. What it does, what it refuses to do, and how to try it in one request.

**In short:** DermLiving is a dermatology knowledge API for software and AI agents. It returns structured conditions, ICD-10-CM and ICD-11 mappings, evidence with provenance, and answers that cite a source for every claim or abstain. Today it runs as a free, keyless sandbox on synthetic data at api.dermliving.com, over REST and MCP.

Software that touches dermatology needs three things that a general-purpose model does not promise. It needs the right concept for what a person typed. It needs a source behind every statement. And it needs a clear refusal when a question asks for a clinical decision. DermLiving is an API that returns those three things as data.

## What is live today

The API at api.dermliving.com serves ten routes over a synthetic sandbox. Every one of them works without a key or a sign-up.

| Route | What it returns |
|---|---|
| `GET /v1/conditions` | Condition records found by name, synonym or code |
| `GET /v1/conditions/{id}` | One structured condition record |
| `GET /v1/terminology/map` | Concepts for a term or a code, with ICD-10-CM and ICD-11 codes and an ambiguity flag |
| `POST /v1/evidence/search` | Ranked passages with source, version, locator and checksum |
| `GET /v1/evidence/{id}` | One passage's provenance, including its license |
| `GET /v1/sources/{id}` | A source's publisher, versions and the uses its license permits |
| `POST /v1/knowledge/ask` | An answer with claim-level citations, or an abstention with a reason |
| `GET /v1/knowledge/versions` | The knowledge versions you can pin, with the release gates each one passed |
| `GET /v1/agent-tools` | The agent tool catalog and the scope each tool needs |
| `POST /v1/agent-tools/execute` | One tool call, with validated arguments |

The same contract is published as [OpenAPI 3.1](https://dermliving.com/openapi.yaml), and the [playground](https://dermliving.com/playground) runs every route in your browser.

## Try it in one request

Ask a question. No key, no account:

```bash
curl https://api.dermliving.com/v1/knowledge/ask \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"question": "Where does atopic dermatitis usually appear in adults?"}'
```

The answer comes back split into claims, and each claim names the passage behind it:

```json
{
  "data": {
    "status": "grounded",
    "answer": "In adults, atopic dermatitis favors flexural skin, the neck, face and hands. [1] Chronic scratching at these sites commonly causes lichenification. [2]",
    "citations": [
      {
        "id": "cit_1",
        "evidence_id": "ev_7Hq2",
        "source": { "id": "src_sbx_ad_overview", "version": "sv_2026_09_14" },
        "locator": "Distribution, para 2",
        "checksum": "sha256:b2bb063ee133",
        "license": "lic_sbx_synthetic"
      }
    ],
    "removed_claims": []
  },
  "meta": { "knowledge_version": "kv_2026_10_01" }
}
```

The response above is shortened: the full one has both citations, the claims and a request id. The [quickstart](https://dermliving.com/docs) walks through the rest.

## What it will not do

DermLiving returns reference knowledge. It does not diagnose, score malignancy, choose or dose treatment, or triage. Ask it which treatment a patient should start, and it abstains with reason `clinical_decision` and no answer. That refusal is part of the contract, not an error. Your software can handle it the same way every time.

It also refuses patient data. Input that looks like it holds patient identifiers gets an abstention with reason `patient_data`, and nothing from the request is stored. The [trust page](https://dermliving.com/trust) sets out the boundaries in full.

## What the sandbox is, and is not

Every passage in the sandbox is synthetic. The data is published as **DermLiving Sandbox Reference**, under a synthetic license, so you can see the shape of every response without mistaking it for clinical content. Do not use it for patient care.

Licensed sources come later. When they do, each source's rights will be recorded before it is indexed: whether it may be stored, embedded, shown as a snippet, shown in full, or used for training. Until then, the sandbox is the whole product, and it is free.

## For agents

The same knowledge is served to AI agents over the Model Context Protocol, at `https://api.dermliving.com/mcp`. It offers five read-only tools: search conditions, get a condition, map terminology, search evidence, and ask for a grounded answer. Add it to any client that supports remote MCP servers:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dermliving": { "type": "http", "url": "https://api.dermliving.com/mcp" }
  }
}
```

For crawlers and models reading the site itself, [llms.txt](https://dermliving.com/llms.txt) points to the docs, the contract and this blog.

## What comes next

Three things are planned, and none of them is live yet:

1. Licensed knowledge, with every source's rights recorded before it is indexed.
2. Keys with their own scopes and usage limits.
3. The TypeScript and Python SDKs and the MCP server, published to npm and PyPI.

The [pricing page](https://dermliving.com/pricing) shows the plans we expect to offer. Nothing is charged today.

## Questions

### Is DermLiving free to use?

Yes. The sandbox is free and needs no key or sign-up. The prices on the pricing page are planned, and nothing is charged today.

### Is the sandbox data real medical content?

No. The sandbox serves a small synthetic dataset published as DermLiving Sandbox Reference. It shows the shape of every response, but it is not clinical content and is not for patient care.

### Can DermLiving diagnose a skin condition?

No. DermLiving returns reference knowledge. A question that asks for a diagnosis or a treatment gets an abstention with reason clinical_decision, and no answer.

### How do AI agents connect to DermLiving?

Through the remote MCP endpoint at https://api.dermliving.com/mcp, which serves five read-only tools over streamable HTTP, or through the REST API described in OpenAPI 3.1.

## Sources

- [DermLiving quickstart](https://dermliving.com/docs), DermLiving
- [OpenAPI Specification v3.1.0](https://spec.openapis.org/oas/v3.1.0), OpenAPI Initiative
- [Model Context Protocol specification, version 2025-11-25](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-11-25), Model Context Protocol