California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, ranked #10 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Caltech's public, machine-readable footprint is concentrated in its research-data and astronomy infrastructure rather than a single central developer portal. CaltechDATA, the institutional research data repository, runs on InvenioRDM and exposes a public REST API and an OAI-PMH interface, with an accompanying open-source Python client. Caltech-operated IPAC runs the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA), which publishes Virtual Observatory (IVOA) standard APIs including TAP, Simple Cone Search, and Simple Image Access. There is no single unified institution-wide API developer portal; the official GitHub "caltech" org is an unofficial community group, while caltechlibrary and Caltech-IPAC host the bulk of the open-source code.

California Institute of Technology publishes 3 APIs on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Education, Higher Education, University, Research Data, and Astronomy.

The California Institute of Technology catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context.

California Institute of Technology’s developer surface includes GitHub presence and 7 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

19.9/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 3/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

AccessFree

3 APIs

EducationHigher EducationUniversityResearch DataAstronomyOpen DataUnited States

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

Composite quality — 19.9/100 · emerging

Contract Quality 3.2 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 0.0 / 20

Commercial Clarity 5.8 / 20

Operational Transparency 3.4 / 13

Governance 0.0 / 12

Discoverability 7.4 / 10

Agent readiness — 3/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/caltech: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 3

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Caltech Rate Limits

1 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHub

GitHub

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

LinkedIn

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Review

Review

Source (apis.yml)

aid: caltech
name: California Institute of Technology
description: 'The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, ranked
  #10 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Caltech''s public, machine-readable footprint is concentrated in its research-data
  and astronomy infrastructure rather than a single central developer portal. CaltechDATA, the institutional research data
  repository, runs on InvenioRDM and exposes a public REST API and an OAI-PMH interface, with an accompanying open-source
  Python client. Caltech-operated IPAC runs the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA), which publishes Virtual Observatory
  (IVOA) standard APIs including TAP, Simple Cone Search, and Simple Image Access. There is no single unified institution-wide
  API developer portal; the official GitHub "caltech" org is an unofficial community group, while caltechlibrary and Caltech-IPAC
  host the bulk of the open-source code.'
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Free
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/caltech.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/caltech/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Research Data
- Astronomy
- Open Data
- United States
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: caltech:caltechdata-rest
  name: CaltechDATA REST API
  description: Public REST API for CaltechDATA, the Caltech institutional research data repository built on InvenioRDM. Supports
    querying and retrieving records, metadata (DataCite 4 JSON), files, and DOIs. Verified live returning JSON record hits.
  humanURL: https://caltechlibrary.github.io/caltechdata_api/
  baseURL: https://data.caltech.edu/api/records
  tags:
  - Research Data
  - Repository
  - InvenioRDM
  - DataCite
  - Open Data
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://caltechlibrary.github.io/caltechdata_api/
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/caltechlibrary/caltechdata_api
- aid: caltech:caltechdata-oai
  name: CaltechDATA OAI-PMH
  description: OAI-PMH metadata harvesting endpoint for CaltechDATA, enabling programmatic harvesting of repository metadata
    records. Verified live via the Identify verb.
  humanURL: https://data.caltech.edu/
  baseURL: https://data.caltech.edu/oai2d
  tags:
  - Research Data
  - OAI-PMH
  - Metadata
  - Harvesting
  - Open Data
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://data.caltech.edu/
- aid: caltech:irsa-vo
  name: IRSA Virtual Observatory APIs (IPAC)
  description: Caltech/IPAC NASA Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) exposes IVOA-standard Virtual Observatory APIs, including
    Table Access Protocol (TAP), Simple Cone Search (SCS), and Simple Image Access (SIA v2), for programmatic access to NASA
    infrared and submillimeter mission catalogs and images. TAP sync endpoint verified live.
  humanURL: https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/voapi.html
  baseURL: https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/TAP
  tags:
  - Astronomy
  - Virtual Observatory
  - TAP
  - NASA
  - Open Data
  - IPAC
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/voapi.html
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/program_interface/api_catalogs.html
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/Caltech-IPAC
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/caltech-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.caltech.edu/
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/caltechlibrary
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/california-institute-of-technology/
- type: Plans
  url: plans/caltech-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/caltech-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/caltech-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

California Institute of Technology

Kin Score

APIs 3

CaltechDATA REST API

CaltechDATA OAI-PMH

IRSA Virtual Observatory APIs (IPAC)

Pricing Plans 1

Caltech Plans Pricing

Rate Limits 1

Caltech Rate Limits

FinOps 1

Caltech Finops

Semantic Vocabularies 1

Caltech Context

Security Posture 1

Caltech Domain Security

Resources