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How to create a new profile

If you have no profile yet (the build pipeline has never made one for you), you can create one yourself and start editing it right away. To learn why creation and ownership happen together, see Core concepts.

You can sign in with ORCID or Google. There is one create endpoint:

  • with an ORCID iD linked to your account, the new profile’s id IS your ORCID iD;
  • signed in with Google only, the new profile gets a Prosopia id (local:...). That id is permanent. If you have an ORCID iD, link it first (Account settings, or the Link ORCID iD first button on the form). If you link it later, you are offered Convert your profile to my ORCID iD, which merges your profile into a new one with your ORCID iD and keeps your handle.

Every account has at most one profile about itself, so you can create one only while you have none.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”

Steps

Section titled “Steps”

  1. Sign in. This redirects you to the provider and back, then sets your session cookie:

    GET /auth/orcid      (or GET /auth/google)

  2. Confirm you can create. In the session probe response, creatable is true only when you have no profile and nothing to claim. create_rid_kind says whether the new profile gets your ORCID iD (orcid) or a Prosopia id (local):

    Terminal window
    curl -b "rp_session=<your-cookie>" https://prosopia.databio.org/api/v1/manage/session

  3. Create the profile. Every field is optional. With an ORCID session you can send an empty body; the server uses the name from your login and derives a slug:

    Terminal window
    curl -b "rp_session=<your-cookie>" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -X POST https://prosopia.databio.org/api/v1/manage/profiles \
      -d '{}'

    You can also supply a name (required if your login provider gave none) and a slug (a lowercase handle; collisions get a -2, -3, … suffix):

    Terminal window
    curl -b "rp_session=<your-cookie>" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -X POST https://prosopia.databio.org/api/v1/manage/profiles \
      -d '{"name": "Jane A. Doe", "slug": "jane-doe"}'

    You can also say where you are in your career with current_rank: one of assistant_professor, associate_professor, professor, research_faculty, staff_scientist, postdoc, graduate_student, undergraduate, clinician, industry or other. The form on the website asks this as one optional click. It changes what the editor’s checklist and the AI interview ask for: a student is not asked for papers they do not have yet. It is saved as your own answer, so a later build never overwrites it, and you can change it in the editor:

    Terminal window
    curl -b "rp_session=<your-cookie>" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -X POST https://prosopia.databio.org/api/v1/manage/profiles \
      -d '{"current_rank": "graduate_student"}'

    The server writes the owner grant in the same transaction that creates the profile, so there is never a moment when the profile exists but nobody owns it.

  4. Edit the profile right away. The response includes the edit URLs. The new profile starts minimal and unpublished (level: "lite", visibility: "limited"), so the public sees none of it until you choose what the public may read on the Privacy page:

    Terminal window
    curl -b "rp_session=<your-cookie>" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -X PATCH https://prosopia.databio.org/api/v1/profiles/jane-doe/metadata \
      -d '{"field": "Computational Biology", "summary": "I study genomes.", "soul": "# How I think\n"}'

    soul is the “how I think” narrative. It is a field like the others, so one request saves it with the rest.

What success looks like

Section titled “What success looks like”

Creation returns 201 Created with the slug, the rid, its kind, and the edit URLs:

{
  "slug": "jane-doe",
  "rid": "0000-0002-1825-0097",
  "rid_kind": "orcid",
  "level": "lite",
  "visibility": "limited",
  "edit_urls": {
    "metadata": "/api/v1/profiles/jane-doe/metadata",
    "visibility": "/api/v1/profiles/jane-doe/visibility"
  }
}

What can go wrong

Section titled “What can go wrong”
  • 401: you are not logged in, or your session expired.
  • 400: the server could not determine a name, or the requested slug is malformed.
  • 409: you already have a profile, a profile with your ORCID iD already exists (claim it instead), or the slug you requested is taken.

Deleting a profile

Section titled “Deleting a profile”

You can remove a profile you created by mistake. Only the owner can delete a profile. Deletion returns 204 No Content:

Terminal window
curl -b "rp_session=<your-cookie>" \
  -X DELETE https://prosopia.databio.org/api/v1/manage/profiles/jane-doe

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”