canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/fronterasignal.com/fronterasignal # Frontera Signal API The Frontera Signal API serves construction market data for the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, covering Hidalgo, Cameron, Starr, and Willacy counties. It returns weekly building permits, building-input price baskets, housing supply and labor conditions, new commercial projects near a street address, company track records with trade licenses, filed cost per square foot, Hidalgo County parcel records, and shelf prices for common building materials. Every reading carries an as_of date, an age in days, a cadence, and a stale flag so a reader knows how fresh it is. The paid endpoints charge per call over the x402 protocol in USDC on the Base network, with no account and no API key. ## For AI agents Read construction market data for the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas: weekly permits, building-input prices, housing supply, labor conditions, commercial projects, parcel records, and material prices. All operations are read-only GETs paid per call over x402, with no API key or account. ## Scope Does not handle permit filing, construction project management, or lending. Use for reading Rio Grande Valley construction market data only. ## Capabilities - Read weekly building-permit counts and the building-input price basket for Hidalgo and Cameron counties - List new commercial projects near a street address with the owner and filed cost - Pull a Hidalgo County parcel record for a given address - Track filed cost per square foot and housing supply trends by county - Read shelf prices for common building materials as low, high, and unit ranges - Look up a construction firm's track record and trade licenses by company name - Retrieve the free catalog of paid endpoints with their prices and sample responses ## Use cases ### AI Agent Construction-Data Lookup An AI agent reaches Frontera Signal through Jentic to answer construction-market questions about the Rio Grande Valley without wiring the x402 payment flow itself. It searches by intent, receives the matching operation and its input schema, and executes the read with payment settled by its own instance. This lets the agent cite a fresh, dated figure rather than guess at regional permit or price trends. Example prompt: Search Jentic for 'weekly building permits for Hidalgo County', load the GET `/api/v1/series/permits-weekly` schema, and execute it to read the latest week ### Commercial Project Monitoring A real-estate or construction team tracks new commercial projects as they are filed across Hidalgo, Cameron, Starr, and Willacy counties. Frontera Signal lists projects near a given street address and the broader commercial filings by county, each with the owner and filed cost, so the agent can surface new activity in a target area. Every record carries an as_of date and a stale flag so the team knows how current the filing is. Example prompt: Call GET `/api/v1/nearby` with an address and city to list nearby commercial projects, then GET `/api/v1/projects` filtered by county to track new filings ### Parcel and Cost Due Diligence Before pricing or bidding on work, an agent pulls the Hidalgo County parcel record for an address and the filed cost per square foot for the area. Frontera Signal returns construction cost as low, high, and unit ranges with an approx flag on rounded readings, so the agent can ground an estimate in filed data rather than a guess. The parcel-match endpoint confirms whether a record exists before a paid lookup is made. Example prompt: Call GET `/api/v1/parcel` with an address and city for the parcel record, then GET `/api/v1/cost-per-sqft` to read filed construction cost for the area ### Building Material Price Tracking A contractor or estimator watches shelf prices for common building materials in the Rio Grande Valley. Frontera Signal returns each material price as a low, high, and unit range with an as_of date, so an agent can detect when a basket item moves and flag it. Pairing the materials feed with the weekly cost-basket series shows both the shelf price and the broader building-input trend. Example prompt: Call GET `/api/v1/materials` to read current shelf prices for common building materials as low, high, and unit ranges ## Key endpoints | Method | Path | Description | | --- | --- | --- | | GET | `/api/v1` | Free catalog of paid endpoints and their prices | | GET | `/api/v1/snapshot` | City construction snapshot | | GET | `/api/v1/projects` | New commercial projects by county | | GET | `/api/v1/nearby` | Commercial projects near an address | | GET | `/api/v1/parcel` | Parcel record for an address | | GET | `/api/v1/cost-per-sqft` | Filed cost per square foot | | GET | `/api/v1/series/permits-weekly` | Building permits by week | | GET | `/api/v1/materials` | Building material shelf prices | ## Key resources - **Market Series** — Read weekly and monthly time series via `/api/v1/series/permits-weekly`, `/api/v1/series/permits-monthly`, `/api/v1/series/cost-basket-weekly`, `/api/v1/series/absorption`, and `/api/v1/series/labor-ranges` - **Projects and Companies** — List commercial projects and firm track records via `/api/v1/projects`, `/api/v1/nearby`, and `/api/v1/companies` - **Parcels and Costs** — Read parcel records and filed construction costs via `/api/v1/parcel`, `/api/v1/parcel/match`, and `/api/v1/cost-per-sqft` - **Catalog** — Read the free catalog of paid endpoints, prices, and samples via `/api/v1`, with health and changelog at `/api/v1/health` and `/api/v1/changelog.json` ## AI readiness This API is usable in Jentic One now. Its AI-readiness score against Jentic's framework shows where it stands today and where improvements would make it even easier for agents to use. - **Score:** 59 / 100 - **Maturity:** Foundational - **Dimensions:** - Foundational Compliance: 81 / 100 - Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility: 69 / 100 - AI-Readiness & Agent Experience: 30 / 100 - Agent Usability: 94 / 100 - Security: 100 / 100 - AI Discoverability: 94 / 100 - **View full report:** https://jentic.com/apis/fronterasignal.com/fronterasignal/scorecard - **How the score is calculated:** https://docs.jentic.com/reference/api-readiness-framework/overview/ - **More about the dimensions:** https://docs.jentic.com/reference/api-readiness-framework/specification/#dimensional-model-overview ### Score it yourself Every API in the directory is allowlisted, so you can re-score it with no key required. - **Score your own API:** https://jentic.com/scorecard.md - **Scoring CLI agent skill:** https://github.com/jentic/jentic-api-scorecard/blob/main/skills/jentic-api-scorecard/SKILL.md ```sh npx @jentic/api-scorecard-cli score ``` ## Why Jentic - **Setup:** Wiring Frontera Signal by hand means handling its x402 payment flow yourself: catching the 402 response, decoding the base64 PAYMENT-REQUIRED header, and paying in USDC on Base before each paid call. Through Jentic you install once, import Frontera Signal from the API Directory, and your agent calls it while your instance settles the payment. - **Permission scoping:** Every Frontera Signal operation is a read-only GET, so a rule can limit your agent to the data pulls it needs, such as the weekly permits series or a parcel lookup, and nothing else. You choose which operations it may call, so a broad snapshot or the commercial-projects feed is not reachable unless you add it. - **Credential handling:** Frontera Signal needs no API key or account: it is paid per call over x402, so the only thing Jentic holds is the payment configuration for your own instance. That configuration stays out of the agent's prompt, logs, and context, and your instance settles each call at execution time. - **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'this week's building permits' or 'parcel record for an address', and Jentic returns the matching Frontera Signal operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs. ## Related APIs - **ATTOM Data** — National property and real-estate data covering parcels, sales, and valuations - **US Census Bureau** — Official demographic, housing, and economic data for US geographies - **US Bureau of Labor Statistics** — National and regional labor-market statistics including construction employment and wages ## FAQ ### What authentication does the Frontera Signal API use? The Frontera Signal API requires no API key and no account. Its paid endpoints charge per call over the x402 protocol in USDC on the Base network: the server answers an unpaid request with a 402 status and a base64 PAYMENT-REQUIRED header, and the client retries with a PAYMENT-SIGNATURE header. The catalog, health, and changelog endpoints are free. Through Jentic the payment configuration is held by your own Jentic One instance, so the agent never handles it. ### What are the rate limits for the Frontera Signal API? The OpenAPI spec does not specify rate limits. Pricing is per call in USDC on Base, and the free catalog endpoint lists the price of every paid endpoint so an agent can read the cost before it spends. See https://fronterasignal.com/terms/ for current terms. ### Can I pull weekly building permits with the Frontera Signal API? Yes. The GET `/api/v1/series/permits-weekly` operation returns building permits by week for the Rio Grande Valley, with optional from and to bounds, and GET `/api/v1/series/permits-monthly` returns the monthly housing-permit series. Each reading carries an as_of date, an age in days, and a stale flag so the agent knows how fresh the figure is. ### Is there a Frontera Signal MCP server? You don't need an MCP server to give your agent Frontera Signal. Jentic connects it directly from the API Directory: import it and your agent calls the construction-data endpoints on demand, discovering each operation's schema when it needs it rather than loading a separate server's tool definitions into context. ### How do I pull a parcel record with the Frontera Signal API through Jentic? Search Jentic for 'parcel record for an address', and it returns the Frontera Signal parcel operation with its input schema. Load the schema and execute GET `/api/v1/parcel` with the address and city, with the x402 payment settled by your instance at run time. To run it on your own infrastructure, install Jentic One from its GitHub repo. ### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Frontera Signal API? Yes. Because every operation is a read-only GET, write a rule that allows only the specific pulls a task needs, for example the weekly permits series and a single parcel lookup, and the agent cannot reach the other series or the commercial-projects feed. Every call runs through your own instance, so each one is logged for you to review.