Cycles ArcCycles ArcCircadian API
Your body's day, computed

The exact light, sleep, alertness, and health windows for any place and date.

Send a date and a place. Get back the human body-clock frame — when to get light, when to sleep, when you'll focus or crash, when caffeine becomes a mistake, the vitamin-D and UV windows, jet-lag recovery, and more. Each answer computed to the second for your exact location, each grounded in named, peer-reviewed chronobiology.

Peer-reviewed
every window traces to named, published chronobiology research
Category of one
the only circadian-rhythm API — there is nothing else to compare it to
One call
a date and a place in, your body-clock day out — JSON back
Every window is grounded in published chronobiology — Zeitzer, Khalsa, Brown, Eastman, Roenneberg and more — not a wellness heuristic. Times are computed for your exact place and moment, to the millisecond, and contested findings are labelled as contested.
Playground

Call the real API

Pick a tab, fill in a date and place, hit run — every tab calls the real API and shows the JSON it returns. Each panel opens with a recorded response so you can see the exact shape before you even click; if the gateway isn't reachable from where you're viewing, it falls back to that same recorded response.

Proof

Grounded in research, not adjectives

Every window this API returns traces to named, peer-reviewed chronobiology — not a wellness heuristic and not a fixed clock-time rule.

Peer-reviewed
every window cites named published research (see The science)
Category of one
the only circadian-rhythm API on the market
Millisecond
local times computed for your exact place and moment
One GET
a date and place in, flat JSON out — no SDK, no data files
CapabilityCycles Arc Circadian APITypical wellness app
Basis for every windowNamed, cited, peer-reviewed chronobiologyUndocumented heuristics
Local timesMillisecond-exact for any place and dateFixed clock-time rules (e.g. "sleep by 10pm")
Place awarenessComputed from your exact latitude/longitude and sunIgnores where you actually are
Contested evidenceLabelled evidence:"CONTESTED" with the failed replicationOverclaims, or stays silent
Access modelSingle GET call, flat JSON responseClosed app, no API
Every endpoint here is live over HTTP. When a required input is missing the API returns a clear error, and when there is genuinely no answer — a polar day with no sunrise and no habitual wake hour — it returns valid:0 with a note, never a fabricated time. The playground calls the real API.
All verbs

Everything this API does

The playground demos eight of these. Every verb below is live on the API today — the same date-and-place in, flat JSON out.

How it works

Date and place in — your body clock out

01

Send a date and a place

A calendar date and a latitude/longitude — plain query parameters, no payloads. Add your habitual wake hour for a personalised answer, or leave it out to anchor to local sunrise.

02

Your solar day is resolved

The sun's exact geometry for that place and date sets the anchors — sunrise, solar noon, twilight, elevation — to the millisecond.

03

The body-clock frame is placed on it

Phase markers, light and melatonin windows, alertness peaks, and health windows are located against your solar day, each following named chronobiology.

04

Get JSON back

Flat, predictable fields — exact local times, and an evidence label where a finding is contested, so you always know how firm a number is.

Use cases

Who this is for

Sleep & wellness apps

Give users a real bedtime, wind-down, and wake window for where they actually are — plus the caffeine cutoff and the power-nap window, all computed, not guessed.

Smart lighting & homes

Drive tunable-white schedules from real melanopic targets: bright day block, evening wind-down CCT, and a night dark block, updated for the date and place.

Wearables & health tech

Overlay the body-clock frame on your own biometrics — phase, alertness peaks, hazard troughs, and jet-lag recovery — without building a chronobiology engine.

Travel & shift-work tools

Turn a route or roster into a re-entrainment plan: shift size and direction, days to adapt, the light strategy, and the misalignment score.

Docs

Example request

GET /v1/circadian/day?year=2026&month=8&day=12&lat=40.7128&lon=-74.006
{
  "sunrise_local": "06:02:59.709",
  "sunset_local": "19:58:25.236",
  "solar_noon_local": "13:01:02.655",
  "day_length_h": 13.9237574,
  "peak_elevation_deg": 64.097084,
  "vitd_window_local": "10:10:57.857..15:50:50.552",
  "place_city": "New York City",
  "tz": "America/New_York"
}

Flat JSON — exact local times, nothing wrapped. Every verb takes the same date-and-place shape; the ones that read as a personal clock (phase, caffeine, performance…) accept an optional wake_local and otherwise anchor to your local sunrise.

The science

The literature behind the numbers

Every window this API returns is grounded in published chronobiology — not a wellness heuristic. Here is the literature behind the numbers.

Light, melatonin & the melanopic eye

  • Zeitzer et al., J. Physiol. 526(3):695–702, 2000. PMID 10922269 — melatonin dose-response to light.
  • CIE S 026/E:2018 — melanopic action spectrum & mEDI.
  • Lucas et al., Trends Neurosci. 37(1):1–9, 2014. PMID 24287308 — α-opic metrics.
  • Brown et al., PLoS Biol. 20(3):e3001571, 2022 — day/evening/night light targets.

Phase markers & the light PRC

  • Khalsa et al., J. Physiol. 549(3):945–952, 2003. PMID 12717008 — the human light phase-response curve.
  • Lewy & Sack, Chronobiol. Int. 6(1):93–102, 1989 — DLMO.
  • Pandi-Perumal et al., Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry 31(1):1–11, 2007. PMID 16884842 — DLMO as the pacemaker marker.

Performance & cognition

  • Drust et al., Chronobiol. Int. 22(1):21–44, 2005. PMID 15839439 — performance & core temperature.
  • Atkinson & Reilly, Sports Med. 21(4):292–312, 1996. PMID 8726347.
  • Facer-Childs et al., Sports Med. Open 4:47, 2018. PMID 30357501 — chronotype.

Jet lag & shift work

  • Eastman & Burgess, Sleep Med. Clin. 4(2):241–255, 2009. PMID 20204161 — re-entrainment rates & direction rule.
  • Wittmann et al., Chronobiol. Int. 23(1–2):497–509, 2006. PMID 16687322 — social jetlag.
  • Roenneberg et al., J. Biol. Rhythms 18(1):80–90, 2003. PMID 12568247 — chronotypes.

Season, latitude, SAD & vitamin D

  • Rosenthal et al., Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 41(1):72–80, 1984. PMID 6581756 — SAD.
  • Rosen et al., Psychiatry Res. 31(2):131–144, 1990. PMID 2326393 — latitude gradient.
  • Terman & Terman, CNS Spectr. 10(8):647–663, 2005. PMID 16041296 — 10,000-lux protocol.
  • Webb et al., J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 67(2):373–378, 1988. PMID 2839537 — latitude & vitamin-D synthesis.
  • Engelsen et al., Photochem. Photobiol. 81(6):1287–1290, 2005. PMID 16354110 — the ~45° UV-B gate.

The Moon & sleep — contested, we show both sides

  • Cajochen et al., Curr. Biol. 23(15):1485–1488, 2013. PMID 23891110 — positive finding.
  • Cordi et al., Curr. Biol. 24(12):R549–R550, 2014. PMID 24937274 — failed replication.
  • Casiraghi et al., Sci. Adv. 7(5):eabe0465, 2021 — field study; mechanism is light.
On the Moon & sleep: the evidence is genuinely disputed. The /v1/circadian/moonlight verb returns the exact lunar geometry over your sleep block and the reported effect sizes, explicitly labelled evidence:"CONTESTED" alongside the replication that failed to find them. We show it honestly rather than overclaim — that honesty is part of the brand.
Pricing

Pay for calls, not seats

Self-serve, metered, and priced in euros. Start free — the free tier and the live playground above are your trial.

Free
€0 / mo
  • 1,000 calls / month
  • All verbs, full playground
  • Community support
Get started
Indie
€29 / mo
  • 10,000 calls / month
  • For hobbyists & early apps
  • Community support
Choose Indie
Scale
€399 / mo
  • 250,000 calls / month
  • Higher throughput
  • Priority support
Choose Scale
Enterprise
from €1,200 / mo
  • Custom volume
  • SLA & dedicated support
  • Licensing
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FAQ

Common questions

How accurate are the times?+
Every window is computed for your exact latitude, longitude, and date — not a fixed clock-time rule — and local times are returned to the millisecond. Because the answer is anchored to your real solar day, the same date gives different windows in Oslo and in Nairobi, as it should.
What does "contested" mean for the moonlight verb?+
The lunar geometry — moonrise, moonset, illuminated fraction over your sleep block — is exact. The effect on sleep is not settled: one well-known study reported an effect, a later replication did not find it. So /v1/circadian/moonlight returns the reported effect sizes but labels them evidence:"CONTESTED", and the Science section links both papers. We'd rather show the disagreement than pretend it away.
Is this medical advice?+
No. This is informational — computed windows grounded in cited, peer-reviewed chronobiology, for use in apps and tools. It is not a diagnosis or a treatment, and it doesn't replace a clinician. Where the research itself is uncertain, the response says so.
Do I have to give a wake time?+
No. The verbs that read as a personal clock accept an optional wake_local (your habitual wake hour). Leave it out and the answer is sun-entrained — anchored to your local sunrise — and the response labels it anchor_source:"sun_entrained" so you always know which frame you're in.
Are the playground calls real?+
Yes — each tab calls the live API and renders the JSON it returns. Every panel opens with a genuine recorded response so it's never empty and you can see the exact fields up front; that same recorded response is also the fallback shown if the gateway can't be reached from your network.