Does Google Scholar have an API available that we can use in our research applications?

I am working on a research publication and collaboration project that has a literature search feature in it. Google Scholar seems like it will work since it is an open source tool, but when I researched Google Scholar, I could not find any information about it having an API.

Is there an API for Google Scholar?

A quick search shows that others are trying to implement such APIs, but Google does not provide one. It is not clear whether this is legal, see for instance How to get permission from Google to use Google Scholar Data, if needed?.