Using the OpenData API Skill

Give Claude direct access to the OpenData catalog. It can search for datasets, inspect columns, pull rows, and feed the results straight into chart configs or analysis.

What does it do?

The OpenData API skill teaches Claude how to call the OpenData REST API. Instead of you manually finding datasets, copying URLs, and formatting queries, Claude handles all of that. Ask for data in plain English and it figures out which dataset to use, which columns to pull, and how to filter.

Works especially well paired with the OpenChart skill for building figures: Claude finds the data, builds the chart config, and you paste it into the editor.

Install in Claude Code

If you already added the tryopendata skills marketplace for the OpenChart skill, you just need to install this one:

# If you haven't added the marketplace yet:
/plugin marketplace add tryopendata/skills


# Install the API skill:
/plugin install opendata-api@opendata-api

Set up your API key

The skill needs an API key to query the platform. Public endpoints work without one, but authenticated requests get higher rate limits and access to write operations.

  1. Go to Settings → API Keys and create a key
  2. Set it as an environment variable that Claude can access:
export OPENDATA_API_KEY=od_live_your_key_here

Or pass it inline when starting Claude Code. The skill picks it up automatically.

What you can ask

Some examples of what Claude can do with this skill:

Find datasets

"Find datasets about US employment"
"What census datasets are available?"
"Search for GDP data"

Inspect a dataset

"What columns does bls/employment-national have?"
"Show me the first 10 rows of census/population"
"What's the date range in treasury/interest-rates?"

Query and filter

"Get US population by state for 2023"
"Pull the top 10 countries by GDP from worldbank/gdp"
"Get monthly unemployment rates from 2020 to 2024"

Build charts from live data

This is where it gets interesting. Combine both skills and Claude pulls data from the platform and generates a chart config in one shot:

"Make a line chart of US unemployment rate over the last 5 years
using data from OpenData"

Claude queries the API, finds the right dataset, pulls the data, and generates a VizSpec you can paste into the Figure Editor.

Install in Claude.ai / Claude Desktop

Download the skill files from github.com/tryopendata/skills and upload them as project knowledge. See Anthropic's guide for details.

Related

Search datasets

Search for datasets or run quick actions