IPUMS API

Name: IPUMS API
Brand: IPUMS API
Availability: InStock

✓ Official Vendor SpecData EnrichmentData TransformationapiKey3 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Discover and retrieve metadata about IPUMS census and survey data resources for research workflows. Authenticate with an API key, list available resources, and fetch details about a specific resource by ID.

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the IPUMS API to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the IPUMS API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with IPUMS API.

Authenticate with an IPUMS account and obtain a bearer access token

List available IPUMS data resources for a researcher's account

Retrieve metadata for a specific IPUMS resource by its identifier

Programmatically index harmonized census and survey microdata products

GET STARTED

Start building with IPUMS API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

IPUMS provides programmatic access to the world's largest collection of harmonized census and survey microdata, covering U.S. and international censuses, the American Community Survey, the Current Population Survey, and global health and time-use studies. This API exposes a token-based authentication endpoint and resource listing operations that index the available IPUMS data products and let developers retrieve metadata about each resource by ID. Authentication uses an X-API-Key header, with bearer access tokens issued from /auth/token for downstream calls.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use IPUMS API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Programmatic IPUMS Data Discovery

Researchers building reproducible pipelines can query the IPUMS API to enumerate the harmonized census, ACS, CPS, and international survey resources their account has access to, instead of copying sample names from the web extract builder. The /resources endpoint returns the index, and /resources/{id} returns metadata for any specific dataset.

Call GET /resources with a valid X-API-Key and write the returned resource list to a manifest file used by the extract pipeline.

Authenticated Token Bootstrap

Long-running services that consume IPUMS data exchange an X-API-Key for a short-lived bearer token via POST /auth/token, reducing exposure of the underlying key during downstream extract or harmonization calls. The token can then be passed to subsequent operations without re-sending the key on every request.

POST /auth/token with the X-API-Key header set and store the returned access_token for use in subsequent /resources calls within its expiry.

Resource Metadata Retrieval for Codebooks

Documentation pipelines and codebook generators can fetch metadata for a specific IPUMS resource by ID via GET /resources/{id} to render variable lists, sample coverage, and descriptions in a research handbook or dashboard, avoiding manual transcription from the IPUMS website.

Call GET /resources/{id} for each resource ID in the project manifest and write the returned metadata to a structured codebook file.

Agent IPUMS Lookup via Jentic

An AI research assistant can answer questions about which IPUMS samples or surveys are available without scraping the IPUMS website by calling these three endpoints through Jentic. Jentic resolves the agent's intent to /resources or /resources/{id}, injects the API key from the vault, and returns parsed JSON ready for summarization.

Use Jentic to search for 'list IPUMS data resources', load the GET /resources operation, and execute it to retrieve the catalogue for the researcher.

Key Endpoints

3 endpoints — ipums provides programmatic access to the world's largest collection of harmonized census and survey microdata, covering u.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

POST

/auth/token

Exchange an API key for a bearer access token

GET

/resources

List available IPUMS data resources

GET

/resources/{id}

Retrieve metadata for a specific resource

POST

/auth/token

Exchange an API key for a bearer access token

GET

/resources

List available IPUMS data resources

GET

/resources/{id}

Retrieve metadata for a specific resource

Why Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

The IPUMS X-API-Key is stored encrypted in the Jentic vault and added to the request header at execution time, so the agent's context never contains the raw key or the bearer token returned by /auth/token.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search by intent (e.g. 'list available IPUMS surveys') and Jentic returns the matching /resources operation with its parameter schema, removing the need to read the IPUMS developer site.

Time to first call

Direct IPUMS integration: 1-2 days for token exchange, request signing, and JSON parsing. Through Jentic: under 30 minutes — search, load, execute.

FAQs

Specific to using IPUMS API through Jentic.

What authentication does the IPUMS API use?

IPUMS uses an X-API-Key header for direct authentication and additionally exposes a POST /auth/token endpoint that exchanges the API key for a short-lived bearer access token. Through Jentic, the API key is stored in the encrypted vault and injected at execution time.

Can I list available IPUMS data resources programmatically?

Yes. The GET /resources endpoint returns the resources accessible to the caller, and GET /resources/{id} returns metadata for a specific resource by its identifier.

How do I get an access token for the IPUMS API?

POST to /auth/token with the X-API-Key header set. The response contains an access token to attach to subsequent requests.

What are the rate limits for the IPUMS API?

IPUMS does not publish per-minute rate limits in the spec; throughput is governed by your IPUMS account and the size of the data extracts you request. Heavy automated usage should respect the IPUMS terms of use.

How do I fetch resource metadata through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'get IPUMS resource metadata', load the GET /resources/{id} operation, and execute it with the resource ID. Jentic injects the X-API-Key and returns the parsed metadata.

Is the IPUMS API free?

IPUMS data is free for academic and non-commercial research use, subject to registration and acceptance of the IPUMS terms. Some commercial uses require a separate agreement with IPUMS.