Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution Open Access REST API providing search and retrieval of over 4.7 million digitized objects, images, 3D models, and metadata across 19 museums and research centers. All content is released under CC0 (public domain) and covers art and design, history and culture, and science and technology collections.

Smithsonian Institution publishes 3 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network: Content API, Metrics API, and Search API. Tagged areas include Museums, Open Access, Cultural Heritage, Collection, and Image.

The Smithsonian Institution catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Smithsonian Institution’s developer surface includes authentication, documentation, engineering blog, pricing, and 10 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

31.5/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 32/100 agent ready Heartbeat 93/100 alive saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessPaid

1 published contract

Museums Open Access Cultural Heritage Collection Image 3D Models Public Domain CC0

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0

Composite quality — 31.5/100 · thin

Contract Quality 12.0 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 4.0 / 17

Access Clarity 2.5 / 17

Operational Transparency 2.1 / 11

Contract Governance 1.0 / 10

Discoverability 5.6 / 9

Regulatory Posture 1.6 / 15

Agent readiness — 32/100 · agent ready

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 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 4 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Horizontal (data, software, accessibility, platform) regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics does not apply to this provider. The published contracts declare no write operations, and a read-only API cannot create-or-update. The facet is excluded from this provider's denominator entirely — not scored zero. A reference or data API is not deficient for being unable to upsert.

The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship Ask about this →
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0 Ask about this →
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document Ask about this →
Delegated User Identity +6 pts — a served discovery document listing authorization_code in grant_types_supported (served), else an oauth2 authorizationCode flow or openIdConnect declared in an OpenAPI (documented) Ask about this →
Typed Event Surface +6 pts — AsyncAPI document, OR webhooks/callbacks objects in the as-published OpenAPI, OR common[].type includes Webhooks Ask about this →
Agent Skills +5 pts — skills artifact present, graded by who authored it Ask about this →

4 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Access Clarity scores 14.9 — up to +17.0 composite points Ask about this →
Developer Ergonomics scores 23.8 — up to +15.2 composite points Ask about this →
Contract Quality scores 56.7 — up to +10.8 composite points Ask about this →

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

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Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/smithsonian/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/smithsonian to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
XR & Graphics (XR, 3D, GPU graphics)	standard	51.7	-	-
IIIF and Cultural Heritage (GLAM image interoperability, Linked Art)	standard	51.7	-	-
US Federal API Programs (api.data.gov, Login.gov, GSA MAS, FedRAMP)	standard	51.7	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 1

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 3

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

Smithsonian Institution Content API

Retrieve individual collection objects by ID or URL

Smithsonian Institution Metrics API

Statistics about CC0 objects and media

Smithsonian Institution Search API

Search across Smithsonian collections

Open Collections 3

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Smithsonian Open Access content API

OPEN COLLECTION

Smithsonian Open Access content metrics API

OPEN COLLECTION

Smithsonian Open Access content search API

OPEN COLLECTION

Smithsonian Institution API pricing

Not yet checked against Smithsonian Institution's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-06-13; confirm before you rely on a figure.

Plan	Price
DEMO_KEY (No Registration)	—
Standard API Key	—
High-Volume Access	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Smithsonian Institution Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Smithsonian Institution Rate Limits

0 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

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

Smithsonian Institution Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Smithsonian Context

5 classes · 39 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs. Counts are the severity each rule declares, not results of running them.

Smithsonian Institution — jsonschema rules

5 rules · 3 warn-severity 2 info-severity

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 2

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Smithsonian Collection Object

12 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Smithsonian Search Response

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Examples 2

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Smithsonian Institution Content Response Example

4 fields

EXAMPLE

Smithsonian Institution Search Response Example

3 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Smithsonian Institution Authentication

apiKey · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Smithsonian Institution Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access (API Evangelist recommendations) 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Smithsonian Institution Agentic Access

5 operations

5 operations · 0 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrg

GitHubOrg

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

StatusPage

StatusPage

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 3

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Pricing

Pricing

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 3

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

LinkedIn

Blog

Blog

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Source (apis.yml)

aid: smithsonian
name: Smithsonian Institution
description: Smithsonian Institution Open Access REST API providing search and retrieval of over 4.7 million digitized objects,
  images, 3D models, and metadata across 19 museums and research centers. All content is released under CC0 (public domain)
  and covers art and design, history and culture, and science and technology collections.
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: paid
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Paid
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-13'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/smithsonian.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/smithsonian/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
tags:
- Museums
- Open Access
- Cultural Heritage
- Collection
- Image
- 3D Models
- Public Domain
- CC0
tags_raw:
- Museums
- Open Access
- Cultural Heritage
- Collections
- Images
- 3D Models
- Public Domain
- CC0
apis:
- aid: smithsonian:smithsonian-content-api
  name: Smithsonian Institution Content API
  description: Retrieve individual collection objects by ID or URL
  humanURL: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/apidocs/
  baseURL: https://api.si.edu/openaccess/api/v1.0
  tags:
  - Content
  tags_raw:
  - content
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/smithsonian-content-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/apidocs/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://api.data.gov/signup/
- aid: smithsonian:smithsonian-metrics-api
  name: Smithsonian Institution Metrics API
  description: Statistics about CC0 objects and media
  humanURL: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/apidocs/
  baseURL: https://api.si.edu/openaccess/api/v1.0
  tags:
  - Metrics
  tags_raw:
  - metrics
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/smithsonian-metrics-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/apidocs/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://api.data.gov/signup/
- aid: smithsonian:smithsonian-search-api
  name: Smithsonian Institution Search API
  description: Search across Smithsonian collections
  humanURL: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/apidocs/
  baseURL: https://api.si.edu/openaccess/api/v1.0
  tags:
  - Search
  tags_raw:
  - search
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/smithsonian-search-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/apidocs/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://api.data.gov/signup/
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/smithsonian-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/smithsonian-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/smithsonian-authentication.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.si.edu
- type: Documentation
  url: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/apidocs/
- type: GitHubOrg
  url: https://github.com/Smithsonian
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smithsonian-institution
- type: Blog
  url: https://www.si.edu/openaccess
- type: Pricing
  url: https://api.data.gov/signup/
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://api.data.gov/
- type: X
  url: https://twitter.com/smithsonian
- type: Plans
  url: plans/smithsonian-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/smithsonian-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/smithsonian-finops.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Smithsonian Institution API — frequently asked questions

Does Smithsonian Institution have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 3 APIs from Smithsonian Institution, including Smithsonian Institution Content API, Smithsonian Institution Metrics API and Smithsonian Institution Search API.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Smithsonian Institution API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 3 OpenAPI specifications for Smithsonian Institution, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the Smithsonian Institution API?

Smithsonian Institution uses bearer-token authentication (apiKey · 1 scheme). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Smithsonian Institution Authentication.

How much does the Smithsonian Institution API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for Smithsonian Institution, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the Smithsonian Institution API ready for AI agents?

Smithsonian Institution has a Kin Score of 31.5 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 32.0 (agent-ready), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-13.

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