Data.gov

aid: data-gov
name: Data.gov
description: Data.gov is the United States federal government's open data catalog, operated by the General Services Administration
  (GSA) Technology Transformation Services. It indexes over 300,000 datasets, tools, and resources from federal, state, local,
  and tribal governments, as well as universities and non-profits. The catalog runs on CKAN 2.11 and exposes the standard
  CKAN Action API at catalog.data.gov/api/3/action for programmatic discovery and retrieval of datasets, organizations, groups,
  tags, and resources. Data.gov also publishes the federal Project Open Data (POD) schema (data.json) catalog endpoint at
  /data.json on every federal agency site, which Data.gov harvests into the central catalog. Related properties include inventory.data.gov
  (publisher-facing CKAN inventory), resources.data.gov (open data policy resources), and the api.data.gov shared API gateway
  used by 25+ federal agencies for 450+ APIs.
type: Index
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/data-gov/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-05-25'
modified: '2026-05-25'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
tags:
- Government
- Open Data
- Catalog
- CKAN
- Datasets
- Federal
- GSA
- Open Government
apis:
- aid: data-gov:ckan-action-api
  name: Data.gov CKAN Action API
  tags:
  - Catalog
  - CKAN
  - Datasets
  - Open Data
  humanURL: https://docs.ckan.org/en/2.11/api/
  baseURL: https://catalog.data.gov/api/3/action
  properties:
  - url: https://docs.ckan.org/en/2.11/api/
    type: Documentation
  - url: https://catalog.data.gov/api/3/action/help_show
    type: APIReference
  - url: https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us/
    type: Standards
  description: The CKAN Action API exposes the full Data.gov catalog programmatically. It provides read access to packages
    (datasets), resources (file/URL distributions), organizations (publishers — federal agencies and sub-agencies), groups
    (topical categories), tags, and users. The API is a single endpoint family at /api/3/action/{action_name} accepting GET
    (for simple read calls) and POST (JSON body) for any action. Key actions include package_search, package_show, package_list,
    organization_list, organization_show, group_list, group_show, tag_list, resource_show, and current_package_list_with_resources.
    Responses are wrapped in {success, result, help} envelopes. Read access is anonymous; write actions require an API key
    (Data.gov restricts write access to authorized agency publishers).
- aid: data-gov:project-open-data
  name: Project Open Data (data.json) Catalog API
  tags:
  - Open Data
  - DCAT-US
  - Federal
  - Catalog
  humanURL: https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us/
  properties:
  - url: https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us/
    type: Documentation
  - url: https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/
    type: JSONSchema
  - url: https://github.com/GSA/project-open-data-dashboard
    type: SourceCode
  description: Every U.S. federal executive branch agency is required by the Open Government Data Act of 2018 (and predecessor
    OMB M-13-13) to publish a public enterprise data inventory as a JSON document at /data.json on its primary domain. The
    format follows the DCAT-US 1.1 schema (Project Open Data Metadata Schema), an extension of W3C DCAT. Data.gov harvests
    these /data.json endpoints on a regular cadence and ingests records into the central CKAN catalog. The schema defines
    a Catalog containing Dataset records with required fields (title, description, keyword, modified, publisher, contactPoint,
    identifier, accessLevel, bureauCode, programCode) and optional distribution records (downloadURL, accessURL, mediaType,
    format).
- aid: data-gov:datajson-harvester
  name: Data.gov Harvester (datagov-harvester)
  tags:
  - Harvesting
  - Catalog
  - Ingestion
  humanURL: https://harvest.data.gov/
  properties:
  - url: https://github.com/GSA/datagov-harvester
    type: SourceCode
  - url: https://harvest.data.gov/
    type: Portal
  description: The Data.gov harvester service ingests dataset metadata from federal, state, local, and tribal data.json endpoints,
    CKAN sources, and other CSW/WAF sources on a scheduled cadence and writes records into the central catalog. It is a publisher-facing
    service (not a public API for consumers) but its source code is open at GSA/datagov-harvester and it documents the harvest
    source types, job schedules, and validation rules used by Data.gov.
- aid: data-gov:inventory-api
  name: Inventory.data.gov CKAN API
  tags:
  - Catalog
  - CKAN
  - Publisher
  - Inventory
  humanURL: https://inventory.data.gov/
  baseURL: https://inventory.data.gov/api/3/action
  properties:
  - url: https://docs.ckan.org/en/2.11/api/
    type: Documentation
  - url: https://github.com/GSA/inventory-app
    type: SourceCode
  description: Inventory.data.gov is a second CKAN instance (also running CKAN 2.11) used by federal agencies as a publishing
    inventory before public release on catalog.data.gov. Most actions require authorization, but the same CKAN Action API
    surface is available at /api/3/action for authenticated publishers to manage their agency's dataset inventory.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: info@apievangelist.com
common:
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/GSA/data.gov
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/GSA
- type: SourceCode
  url: https://github.com/GSA/catalog.data.gov
- type: Portal
  url: https://data.gov/
- type: Catalog
  url: https://catalog.data.gov/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://resources.data.gov/
- type: Strategy
  url: https://strategy.data.gov/
- type: Blog
  url: https://data.gov/news/
- type: Twitter
  url: https://twitter.com/usdatagov
- type: Standards
  url: https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us/
- type: Legislation
  url: https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ435/PLAW-115publ435.pdf
- type: Contact
  url: https://data.gov/contact/
- type: Privacy
  url: https://data.gov/privacy-policy/
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://data.gov/privacy-policy/#data-policy
include: []
score:
  tier: 1
  rationale: Data.gov is the canonical U.S. federal open data catalog, mandated by the OPEN Government Data Act of 2018. It
    exposes the full CKAN 2.11 Action API at catalog.data.gov/api/3/action, indexes 300,000+ datasets from across federal,
    state, local, and tribal governments, defines the DCAT-US (Project Open Data) metadata standard used by every federal
    agency's /data.json endpoint, and is operated openly with all infrastructure code on github.com/GSA. The breadth of downstream
    data, the open-source posture, the legal mandate behind the catalog, and the standardization role (DCAT-US) place it firmly
    in Tier 1.