# FaceBase ERMrest Data API

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/apis/usc/facebase-ermrest/  
**Provider:** University of Southern California — https://apis.io/providers/usc/  
**Base URL:** https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1  
**Documentation:** https://www.facebase.org/about

FaceBase ERMrest Data API is one of 8 APIs that [University of Southern California](https://apis.io/providers/usc/) publishes on the [APIs.io](https://apis.io/) network. Tagged areas include Research Data, ERMrest, DERIVA, Craniofacial, and REST. The published artifact set on APIs.io includes an API reference.

Keyless, read-only JSON REST API of the FaceBase craniofacial data hub, an NIDCR-funded resource led from USC and engineered by USC's Information Sciences Institute. GET https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1 returns 200 application/json with the catalog root; GET https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1/schema returns 200 application/json, 923,861 bytes, the full introspectable relational model. Attribution is settled from what the surface says about itself rather than from the hostname: the catalog's own annotation keys are namespaced tag:isrd.isi.edu (USC ISI's Informatics Systems Research Division), the responses carry a deriva-client-context CORS header, and the ERMrest server itself is USC ISI's Apache-2.0 project at github.com/informatics-isi-edu/ermrest, actively maintained as of 2026-06-10. Its DOIs are minted under USC's own DataCite provider account as client usc.facebase (1,410 DOIs). Recorded as institution rather than tenant on that basis, with the caveat stated plainly: facebase.org is a consortium domain, not a usc.edu registrable domain, so a host-only verdict would not reach this conclusion. No OpenAPI is saved — ERMrest is a generic protocol shared by every DERIVA deployment (gudmap.org and atlas-d2k.org answer the same paths), so the product contract belongs with the software, while this deployment, its data and its DOIs are USC's.

## Machine-readable artifacts (3)

- **APIReference** — https://www.facebase.org/ermrest/catalog/1/schema
- **SourceCode** — https://github.com/informatics-isi-edu/ermrest
- **Website** — https://www.facebase.org/

## Other University of Southern California APIs (7)

- [USC Shibboleth Identity Provider (SAML 2.0 Metadata)](https://apis.io/apis/usc/shibboleth-idp/)
- [USC DataCite DOI Registration (Provider Account)](https://apis.io/apis/usc/datacite-membership/)
- [USC Digital Library API (Orange Logic Cortex)](https://apis.io/apis/usc/digital-library-cortex/)
- [USC Figshare Research Repository (Tenant)](https://apis.io/apis/usc/figshare-repository/)
- [USC Libraries Discovery (Ex Libris Primo VE, Tenant)](https://apis.io/apis/usc/primo-discovery/)
- [USC Canvas Learning Management System (Instructure, Tenant)](https://apis.io/apis/usc/canvas-lms/)
- [USC Schedule of Classes (SOC) — Web Services API, retired](https://apis.io/apis/usc/schedule-of-classes/)

## Tags

Research Data, ERMrest, DERIVA, Craniofacial, REST, Open Data

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/apis/usc/facebase-ermrest/). The API's provider profile, Kin Score and agent-readiness rating are at https://apis.io/providers/usc/.