Low Hanging Fruit For API Discovery In The Federal Government

I looked through 77 of the developer areas for federal agencies, resulting in reviewing approximately 190 APIs. While the presentation of 95% of the federal government developer portals are crap, it makes me happy that about 120 of the 190 APIs (over 60%) are actually consumable web APIs, that didn't make me hold my nose and run out of the API area. 

Of the 190, only 13 actually made me happy for one reason or another:

Don't get me wrong, there are other nice implementations in there. I like the simplicity and consistency in APIs coming out of GSA, SBA, but overall federal APIs reflect what I see a lot in the private sector, some developer making a decent API, but their follow-through and launch severeley lacks what it takes to make the API successful. People wonder why nobody uses their APIs? hmmmmm....

A little minimalist simplicity in a developer portal, simple explanation of what an API does, interactive documentation w/ Swagger, code libraries, terms of service (TOS), wouild go a looooooooooooong way in making sure these government resources were found, and put to use. 

Ok, so where the hell do I start? Let's look through theses 123 APIs and see where the real low hanging fruit for demonstrating the potential of APIs.json, when it comes to API discovery in the federal government.

Let's start again with the White House (http://www.whitehouse.gov/developers):

Only one API made it out of the USDA:

Department of Commerce (http://www.commerce.gov/developer):

  • Census Bureau API - http://www.census.gov/developers/ - Yes, a real developer area with supporting building blocks. (Update, News,( App Gallery, Forum, Mailing List). Really could use interactive document though. There are urls, but not active calls. Would be way easier if you could play with data, before committing. (B)
  • Severe Weather Data Inventory - http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/swdiws/ - Fairly basic interface, wouldn’t take much to turn into modern web API. Right now its just a text file, with a spec style documentation explaining what to do. Looks high value. (B)
  • National Climatic Data Center Climate Data Online Web Services - http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/webservices/v2Oh yeah, now we are talking. That is an API. No interactive docs, but nice clean ones, and would be some work, but could be done. (A)
  • Environmental Research Division's Data Access Program - http://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/rest.html - Looks like a decent web API. Wouldn’t be too much to generate a machine readable definition and make into a better API area. (B)
  • Space Physics Interactive Data Resource Web Services - http://spidr.ngdc.noaa.gov/spidr/docs/SPIDR.REST.WSGuide.en.pdf - Well its a PDF, but looks like a decent web API. It would be some work but could turn into a decide API with Swagger specs. (B)
  • Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services - http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/ - Fairly straightforward API, Simple. Wouldn’t be hard to generate interactive docs for it. Spec needed. (B)

Arlington Cemetary:

Department of Education:

  • Department of Education - http://www.ed.gov/developers - Lots of high value datasets. Says API, but is JSON file. Wouldn’t be hard to generate APIs for it all and make machine readable definitions. (B)

Energy:

  • Energy Information Administration - http://www.eia.gov/developer/ - Nice web API, simple clean presentation. Needs interactive docs. (B)
  • National Renewable Energy Laboratory - http://developer.nrel.gov/ - Close to a modern Developer area with web APIs. Uses standardized access (umbrella). Some of them have Swagger specs, the rest would be easy to create. (A)
  • Office of Scientific and Technical Information - http://www.osti.gov/XMLServices - Interfaces are pretty well designed, and Swagger specs would be straightforward. But docs are all PDF currently. (B)

Department of Health and Human Services (http://www.hhs.gov/developer):

Food and Drug Administration (http://open.fda.gov):

Department of Homeland Security (http://www.dhs.gov/developer):

Two losse cannons:

 Department of Interior (http://www.doi.gov/developer):

Department of Justice (http://www.justice.gov/developer):

Labor:

  • Department of Labor - http://developer.dol.gov/ - I love their developer area. They have a great API, easy to generate API definitions. (A)
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics - http://www.bls.gov/developers/ - Web APIs in there. Complex, and lots of work, but can be done. API Definitions Needed. (B)

Department of State (http://www.state.gov/developer):

Department of Transportation (http://www.dot.gov/developer):

Department of the Treasury (http://www.treasury.gov/developer):

Veterans Affairs (http://www.va.gov/developer):

Consumer Finance Protectection Bureau:

Federal Communications Commission (http://www.fcc.gov/developers):

Lone bank:

  • Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - http://api.stlouisfed.org/ - Good API and area, would be easy to generate API definitions. (B)

General Services Administration (http://www.gsa.gov/developers/):

National Aeronautics and Space Administration http://open.nasa.gov/developer:

Couple more loose cannons:

Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (http://www.recovery.gov/arra/FAQ/Developer/Pages/default.aspx):

Small Business Administration (http://www.sba.gov/about-sba/sba_performance/sba_data_store/web_service_api):

Last but not least.

That is a lot of potentially valuable API resource to consume. From my perspective, I think that what has come out of GSA, SBA, and White House Petition API, represent probably the simplest, most consistent, and high value targets for me. Next maybe the wealth of APis out of Interior and FDA. AFter that I'll cherry pick from the list, and see which are easiest. 

I'm lookig to create a Swagger definition for each these APIs, and publish as a Github repository, allowing people to play with the API. If I have to, I'll create a proxy for each one, because CORS is not common across the federal government. I'm hoping to not spend to much time on proxies, because once I get in there I always want to improve the interface, and evolve a facade for each API, and I don't have that much time on my hands.