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 APIs 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 📡 Source on GitHub

41.6/100 developing ▬ flat Agent 33/100 agent ready Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-25 · rubric v0.14.0

AccessPaidSelf serve

3 APIs

Museums Open Access Cultural Heritage Collection Image 3D Models Public DomainCC0

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-25 · rubric v0.14.0

Composite quality — 41.6/100 · developing

Contract Quality 15.5 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 4.8 / 20

Access Clarity 10.0 / 20

Operational Transparency 2.7 / 13

Contract Governance 1.2 / 12

Discoverability 7.4 / 10

Agent readiness — 33/100 · 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 Surface 0 / 5

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/smithsonian: 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.

Smithsonian Rate Limits

0 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

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

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.

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
accessModel:
  pricing: paid
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Paid · Self-serve signup
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  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

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