Opendatanetwork ODN API

Name: ODN API
Brand: ODN API
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentData EnrichmentData Transformationnone9 Endpoints

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the ODN API to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the ODN 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 ODN API.

Search across thousands of government datasets by keyword, agency, or category through /search/v1/dataset

Resolve entity-level data for places, populations, and regions via /entity/v1 and follow related-entity edges with /entity/v1/{relation}

Retrieve harmonized indicator values across multiple variables and entities through /data/v1/values

GET STARTED

Start building with ODN API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

For Agents

Search and retrieve harmonized US public-sector datasets, indicator values, and entity relationships across thousands of government agencies via one REST API.

Use for: Search for US government datasets about housing prices in a specific county, Retrieve population indicator values for several cities in one call, Find all entities related to a given metropolitan statistical area, Get the available variables for a specific place entity

Not supported: Does not handle write operations, dataset publishing, or per-row Socrata SODA queries — use for cross-agency dataset search and harmonized indicator lookup only.

The Open Data Network (ODN) API, originally built by Socrata, exposes harmonized public datasets from thousands of US government and non-profit agencies through a single REST surface. It supports cross-agency entity lookups, dataset and question search, value retrieval for indicators, and constraint and availability discovery so developers can compare populations, economies, and geographies without hunting through individual portals. The API is read-only and JSON-first, exposing nine endpoints across data, entity, search, and suggest namespaces.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use ODN API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Cross-Agency Public Data Search

Build a research or journalism tool that searches across thousands of US government datasets without integrating each agency portal individually. The ODN API consolidates Socrata-hosted catalogs and exposes one search endpoint that returns datasets ranked by relevance, with publisher and category facets for filtering. Suitable for civic data products that need broad coverage with low integration cost.

Call /search/v1/dataset with q="median household income" and return the top 10 dataset titles, publishers, and links.

Entity-Based Indicator Comparison

Compare economic, demographic, or education indicators across multiple US places in a single request. The /data/v1/values endpoint accepts entity IDs and variable IDs and returns harmonized values, removing the need to reconcile schemas between agencies. Used by dashboards that benchmark cities, counties, or states on shared indicators.

Fetch /data/v1/values for variable demographics.population.count and entities for Seattle and Boston, then output the latest year's value for each.

Place Autocomplete for Civic Apps

Power autocomplete in civic dashboards and research tools using /suggest/v1/{type}. Type categories include entity, publisher, category, and question, returning short ranked suggestions ideal for type-ahead inputs. Reduces the need to ship a static gazetteer alongside the application.

Query /suggest/v1/entity with query="san fr" and return the top five matching entities with their IDs.

AI Agent Public Data Lookup via Jentic

An AI agent answering policy or research questions can call the ODN API through Jentic to ground responses in authoritative public datasets. Jentic returns the matching ODN operation and schema for an intent like "find population data for a county", so the agent can execute search and values calls without browsing the docs. The API is unauthenticated, so credential setup is not required.

Use Jentic to discover the ODN search operation, then call it with q="unemployment rate" and summarise the top three datasets returned.

Key Endpoints

9 endpoints — the open data network (odn) api, originally built by socrata, exposes harmonized public datasets from thousands of us government and non-profit agencies through a single rest surface.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/search/v1/dataset

Search datasets across the network

GET

/search/v1/question

Search natural-language questions

GET

/entity/v1

Look up entities by ID or name

GET

/entity/v1/{relation}

Traverse related entities

GET

/data/v1/values

Retrieve indicator values for entities and variables

GET

/data/v1/availability/

List available variables for an entity

GET

/data/v1/constraint/{variable}

Get constraints for a variable

GET

/suggest/v1/{type}

Type-ahead suggestions for entities, publishers, categories, or questions

GET

/search/v1/dataset

Search datasets across the network

GET

/search/v1/question

Search natural-language questions

GET

/entity/v1

Look up entities by ID or name

GET

/entity/v1/{relation}

Traverse related entities

GET

/data/v1/values

Retrieve indicator values for entities and variables

Why Jentic?

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

Credential isolation

The ODN API is unauthenticated, so no credentials are stored. Jentic still routes the call through its execution layer, isolating any future key requirement should the upstream vendor introduce one.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic with intents like "search government datasets" or "compare cities by indicator" and receive the matching ODN operations with input schemas, removing the need to read the original Socrata documentation.

Time to first call

Direct ODN integration: half a day for parameter discovery and response parsing across the four endpoint families. Through Jentic: under 15 minutes — search, load schema, execute.

FAQs

Specific to using ODN API through Jentic.

What authentication does the ODN API use?

The ODN API is unauthenticated for the documented endpoints — no API key or OAuth token is required. Through Jentic, the operation can be called directly without managing credentials, which simplifies agent setup compared with vendor APIs that require key issuance.

Can I retrieve indicator values for multiple entities in one call with the ODN API?

Yes. The /data/v1/values endpoint accepts entity IDs and variable IDs as parameters and returns harmonized values across the requested combinations, so a dashboard can fetch GDP or population for several cities in a single request rather than iterating per entity.

What are the rate limits for the ODN API?

The published spec does not declare rate limits. Because the underlying data is sourced from Socrata-powered portals, expect standard public-API throttling — keep request rates conservative and add retry-with-backoff on HTTP 429 responses.

How do I search for a specific dataset with the ODN API through Jentic?

Use the Jentic search query "search government datasets by keyword". Jentic returns the /search/v1/dataset operation with its input schema; the agent then calls it with the q parameter and reads the dataset list from the response. Get started at https://app.jentic.com/sign-up.

Is the ODN API free to use?

Yes. The Open Data Network was built by Socrata as a free public-data layer over thousands of government portals, and the documented endpoints are open without a paid tier.

How do I get autocomplete suggestions from the ODN API?

Call /suggest/v1/{type} where {type} is one of entity, publisher, category, or question, passing a partial query string. The endpoint returns ranked short suggestions suitable for type-ahead inputs in civic data UIs.