Sofar Ocean

Sofar Ocean operates one of the world's largest privately owned networks of real-time ocean weather sensors. Its Spotter buoys and Smart Mooring subsurface sensors stream wave, wind, sea-surface temperature, barometric pressure, and acoustic data via cellular and satellite telemetry, and the Wayfinder platform turns that data into maritime voyage optimization. The Sofar API (Spotter & Smart Mooring plus the Operational Wave Spectra forecast) gives developers token-authenticated access to device telemetry, historical and geospatial data queries, subsurface sensor readings, NetCDF wave-spectra forecasts, and outbound data-forwarding webhooks.

Sofar Ocean publishes 4 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Devices API, Smart Mooring API, Spotter Data API, and 1 more. Tagged areas include Company, Climate, Ocean Data, Weather, and Maritime.

The Sofar Ocean catalog on APIs.io includes 1 event-driven AsyncAPI specification and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Sofar Ocean’s developer surface includes documentation, API reference, getting-started guide, authentication, sandbox, support, engineering blog, and 21 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

48.4/100 developing ▬ flat Agent 33/100 agent ready Front door AI 1/6 silent Heartbeat 63/100 slowing saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

1 published contract 3 Agent Skills

Company Climate Ocean Data Weather Maritime Sensors IoT Environmental DataWave DataBuoys

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 48.4/100 · developing

Contract Quality 12.2 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 12.0 / 17

Access Clarity 4.7 / 17

Operational Transparency 2.9 / 11

Contract Governance 1.9 / 10

Discoverability 6.2 / 9

Regulatory Posture 3.7 / 15

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 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 6 / 6

Agent Skills 5 / 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 0 / 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
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Rate-Limit Signaling +7 pts — OpenAPI responses document X-RateLimit-* / RateLimit headers (verified), else a rate_limits artifact or RateLimits link (documented)
Request/Response Examples +7 pts — share of operations carrying request/response examples; else an Examples / Code Samples link
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document
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)

5 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

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

Access Clarity scores 27.6 — up to +14.5 composite points
Contract Quality scores 57.4 — up to +10.7 composite points
Contract Governance scores 18.2 — up to +9.8 composite points

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.

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/sofar-ocean/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/sofar-ocean 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
Weather and Climate Data	undeclared	-	-	-
Maritime Logistics (ocean shipping, eBL, ports)	undeclared	-	-	-

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 4

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

Sofar Ocean Devices API

Spotter device discovery

Sofar Ocean Smart Mooring API

Data collected by Smart Mooring subsurface sensors

Sofar Ocean Spotter Data API

Data collected by onboard Spotter sensors

Sofar Ocean Wave Spectra API

Sofar Operational WaveWatch III wave spectra forecast

Open Collections 4

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

Sofar Ocean Spotter & Smart Mooring Devices API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sofar Ocean Spotter & Devices Smart Mooring API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sofar Ocean Spotter & Smart Mooring Devices Spotter Data API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sofar Ocean Spotter & Smart Mooring Devices Wave Spectra API

OPEN COLLECTION

Agent Skills 3

Packaged agent skills for driving this provider's APIs from an AI assistant.

Fetch latest Spotter data

AGENT SKILL

Query historical and area-based Spotter data

AGENT SKILL

Read Smart Mooring subsurface sensor data

AGENT SKILL

Event Specifications 1

AsyncAPI definitions for this provider's event-driven and streaming APIs.

Sofar Ocean Data Forwarding Webhooks

ASYNCAPI

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Sofar Ocean API Rules

63 rules · 57 errors 4 warnings 2 info

SPECTRAL

OpenAPI Overlays 1

Overlays applied on top of this provider's contracts. Each card says who wrote it: a document the provider publishes, or one API Evangelist derived or generated.

Sofar Ocean Spotter Overlay

3 actions · update · sofar-ocean-spotter-openapi.yml

DERIVED

Security Posture 2

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

Sofar Ocean Authentication

apiKey · 2 schemes

SECURITY

Sofar Ocean Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

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

Sofar Ocean Agentic Access

8 operations

8 operations · 0 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 4

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

GettingStarted

GettingStarted

Sandbox

Sandbox

Login

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

APIReference

APIReference

Agent Surfaces 4

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

LLMsTxt

LLMsTxt

X-MCPServerCandidate

X-MCPServerCandidate

AgentSkill

AgentSkill

Design & Contract 6

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Conventions

ErrorCatalog

DataModel

Conformance

Webhooks

Lifecycle

Build 3

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Packages

Packages

SDKs

SDKs

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

StatusPage

StatusPage

Support

Support

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

TermsOfService

TermsOfService

PrivacyPolicy

PrivacyPolicy

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Blog

Blog

Website

Website

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Overlay

Overlay

Source (apis.yml)

aid: sofar-ocean
name: Sofar Ocean
description: Sofar Ocean operates one of the world's largest privately owned networks of real-time ocean weather sensors.
  Its Spotter buoys and Smart Mooring subsurface sensors stream wave, wind, sea-surface temperature, barometric pressure,
  and acoustic data via cellular and satellite telemetry, and the Wayfinder platform turns that data into maritime voyage
  optimization. The Sofar API (Spotter & Smart Mooring plus the Operational Wave Spectra forecast) gives developers token-authenticated
  access to device telemetry, historical and geospatial data queries, subsurface sensor readings, NetCDF wave-spectra forecasts,
  and outbound data-forwarding webhooks.
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: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source:
  - authentication
  - security
  - sandbox
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/64d14310c4accecbf82f0e9f/67eb3186e1334d183e9d2b0e_meta%20image%20sofar%20site-min.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/sofar-ocean/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
x-type: company
x-source: vc-portfolio
x-backed-by:
- foundry-group
- union-square-ventures
x-tier: active
specificationVersion: '0.23'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-21'
x-docs-platform: gitbook
x-docs-platform-confidence: high
x-docs-platform-checked: 2026-10-04
tags:
- Company
- Climate
- Ocean Data
- Weather
- Maritime
- Sensors
- IoT
- Environmental Data
- Wave Data
- Buoys
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
apis:
- aid: sofar-ocean:sofar-ocean-devices-api
  name: Sofar Ocean Devices API
  description: Spotter device discovery
  humanURL: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring
  baseURL: https://api.sofarocean.com
  tags:
  - Devices
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sofar-ocean-devices-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.sofarocean.com
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring
  - type: Webhooks
    url: asyncapi/sofar-ocean-data-forwarding-webhooks.yml
- aid: sofar-ocean:sofar-ocean-smart-mooring-api
  name: Sofar Ocean Smart Mooring API
  description: Data collected by Smart Mooring subsurface sensors
  humanURL: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring
  baseURL: https://api.sofarocean.com
  tags:
  - Smart Mooring
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sofar-ocean-smart-mooring-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.sofarocean.com
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring
  - type: Webhooks
    url: asyncapi/sofar-ocean-data-forwarding-webhooks.yml
- aid: sofar-ocean:sofar-ocean-spotter-data-api
  name: Sofar Ocean Spotter Data API
  description: Data collected by onboard Spotter sensors
  humanURL: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring
  baseURL: https://api.sofarocean.com
  tags:
  - Spotter Data
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sofar-ocean-spotter-data-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.sofarocean.com
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring
  - type: Webhooks
    url: asyncapi/sofar-ocean-data-forwarding-webhooks.yml
- aid: sofar-ocean:sofar-ocean-wave-spectra-api
  name: Sofar Ocean Wave Spectra API
  description: Sofar Operational WaveWatch III wave spectra forecast
  humanURL: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring
  baseURL: https://api.sofarocean.com
  tags:
  - Wave Spectra
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sofar-ocean-wave-spectra-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.sofarocean.com
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring
  - type: Webhooks
    url: asyncapi/sofar-ocean-data-forwarding-webhooks.yml
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/sofar-ocean-domain-security.yml
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://docs.sofarocean.com
- type: Documentation
  url: https://docs.sofarocean.com
- type: APIReference
  url: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://docs.sofarocean.com/spotter-and-smart-mooring/test-the-api
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/sofar-ocean-authentication.yml
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/sofar-ocean-agentic-access.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/sofar-ocean-llms.txt
- type: Packages
  url: packages/sofar-ocean-packages.yml
- type: SDKs
  url: packages/sofar-ocean-packages.yml
- type: X-MCPServerCandidate
  url: mcp/sofar-ocean-mcp.yml
  note: 'Renamed from MCPServer 2026-09-03 (roadmap#247): the manifest self-describes as status: candidate — a tool list derived
    from the published API contracts, not an existing server. The scorer already read the manifest and reported mcp_server
    correctly; the MCPServer type was crediting the artifact-type surfaces with a server that does not exist.'
- type: AgentSkill
  url: skills/_index.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/sofar-ocean-conventions.yml
- type: ErrorCatalog
  url: errors/sofar-ocean-problem-types.yml
- type: DataModel
  url: data-model/sofar-ocean-data-model.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/sofar-ocean-conformance.yml
- type: Overlay
  url: overlays/sofar-ocean-spotter-overlay.yaml
- type: Webhooks
  url: asyncapi/sofar-ocean-data-forwarding-webhooks.yml
- type: Sandbox
  url: sandbox/sofar-ocean-sandbox.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/sofar-ocean-lifecycle.yml
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://sofarocean.statuspage.io
- type: Support
  url: https://www.sofarocean.com/support
- type: Blog
  url: https://www.sofarocean.com/posts
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/SofarOcean
- type: Login
  url: https://spotter.sofarocean.com/
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.sofarocean.com/legal/terms-of-use
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.sofarocean.com/legal/privacy-policy
- type: Website
  url: https://www.sofarocean.com
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-21'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 20
  pass: local-v1

Sofar Ocean API — frequently asked questions

Does Sofar Ocean have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 4 APIs from Sofar Ocean, including Sofar Ocean Devices API, Sofar Ocean Smart Mooring API and Sofar Ocean Spotter Data API, and 1 more.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Sofar Ocean API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 4 OpenAPI specifications for Sofar Ocean, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the Sofar Ocean API?

Sofar Ocean uses bearer-token authentication (apiKey · 2 schemes). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Sofar Ocean Authentication.

Is the Sofar Ocean API ready for AI agents?

Sofar Ocean has a Kin Score of 48.4 out of 100 (developing) and an Agent Readiness score of 33.0 (agent-ready), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

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