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Use when suggesting APIs for a project, looking for free data sources, building weekend projects that need external data, or when the user needs weather, news, finance, sports, ML, or entertainment data without paid subscriptions
Use this skill when creating new files that represent architectural decisions — data models, infrastructure configs, auth boundaries, API contracts, CI/CD pipelines, or event systems. Flags irreversible decisions and forces a discussion about trade-offs before committing.
Configure install-time cooldowns for npm/bun (minimum release age) and run a sandboxed pre-install scan when the cooldown has to be bypassed. Use when the user asks about supply-chain attacks, npm/bun security, "minimum release age", a "cooldown" for installs, hardening against Shai-Hulud-class worms, or how to safely install a package that was just published. Also use after any recent supply-chain incident in the npm ecosystem.
Generate CLAUDE.md project memory files that transfer institutional knowledge, not obvious information. Use when setting up new journalism projects, onboarding collaborators, or documenting project-specific quirks. Includes templates for editorial tools, event websites, publications, research projects, content pipelines, and digital archives.
Generate LESSONS.md retrospective files that capture institutional knowledge, especially failures. Use when closing out journalism projects, investigations, events, or publications. Includes templates for research projects, event post-mortems, editorial tools, and publications.
Choose the correct CLAUDE.md or LESSONS.md template for journalism projects. Use when starting a new project, setting up documentation, or unsure which template category fits best. Provides decision trees and selection guidance for 6 journalism-focused template types.
Generate self-contained HTML pages that visually explain systems, data stories, investigations, editorial workflows, and code changes. Use when the user asks for a diagram, architecture overview, diff review, plan review, project recap, source map, comparison table, timeline, or any visual explanation of technical or editorial concepts. Also use proactively when about to render a complex ASCII table (4+ rows or 3+ columns) — present it as a styled HTML page instead. Adapted from nicobailon/visual-explainer with journalism, newsroom, and academic design sensibilities.
| name | free-apis-catalog |
| description | Use when suggesting APIs for a project, looking for free data sources, building weekend projects that need external data, or when the user needs weather, news, finance, sports, ML, or entertainment data without paid subscriptions |
A short list of free APIs that work for journalism, research, and weekend projects under current free-tier conditions. The value here is curation under verified 2026 free-tier limits — not coverage. For breadth, defer to the canonical aggregator below.
For a near-complete inventory of free public APIs across every category (1000+ entries, actively maintained), use:
Not archived, last commit verified 2026-05-09, 4,600+ commits, 6,000+ merged PRs. When you need an API outside the categories below, search there first.
This skill curates the journalism-relevant subset.
| API | Status | What to use instead |
|---|---|---|
| IEX Cloud | Fully retired 2024-08-31. https://iexcloud.org/ | Alpha Vantage, Tiingo IEX, Financial Modeling Prep, Polygon |
| CrowdTangle | Sunset 2024-08-14 | Meta Content Library (academic/non-profit-research only — most journalists ineligible). https://transparency.meta.com/researchtools/meta-content-library/ |
| ProPublica Congress API | Retired 2024-07-10, repo archived. https://www.propublica.org/nerds/congress-api-update | api.congress.gov (Library of Congress, free with api.data.gov key) |
| X / Twitter API free tier | Effectively eliminated for new developers as of Feb 2026; pay-per-use only. Uncertain on exact figures (provider pricing page returned 402). Treat as paid. | No free replacement; closest free alternatives are Bluesky Jetstream + Mastodon |
| Reddit API | Free for research/non-commercial only since June 2023; paid for commercial use. https://www.reddit.com/wiki/api/ | (Same — usable for journalism research, prohibited for monetized products) |
| Hugging Face Inference API | Rebranded to Inference Providers (router across 20+ providers). Free users now get $0.10/month in credits, down from previous unmetered free tier for many models. https://huggingface.co/docs/inference-providers/pricing | Free tier still works for low-volume / embeddings; paid for production |
All entries below verified against provider pages on 2026-05-09 unless marked uncertain. Always confirm rate limits against the provider's live developer docs before depending on them in production.
| API | Free tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GDELT 2.0 | Fully free, no auth | Global news + knowledge graph, updates every 15 min, BigQuery-mirrored. Strong for cross-border / longitudinal monitoring. |
| NewsAPI | 100 req/day, 24h delay, 1mo window, dev-only | Commercial use prohibited on free tier. Not usable in shipped products. |
| GNews | 100 req/day, 30d window, 12h delay, non-commercial | 10 articles/request cap. |
| Mediastack | 100 req/month, 30-min delay | Functionally a demo. |
| NYT Article Search / Top Stories | Free with key, daily cap (uncertain — verify) | Solid for archival queries. |
| API | Free tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bluesky Jetstream | Public WebSocket firehose, no auth | Real-time public-post stream. 4 official instances. Caveat: not formally part of AT Protocol — no long-term stability commitment. |
| Bluesky AppView | Public read endpoints, 3000 req / 5min IP-based | Auth needed for write ops. Profiles, posts, search. |
| Mastodon | Per-instance, OAuth, public endpoints often unauth-readable | Federated — coverage is server-by-server. |
| Threads (Meta) | Free pricing not surfaced on docs page (uncertain — verify) | Read/post/reply/search/insights/webhooks. |
| 100 QPM authenticated, 10 QPM unauthenticated, non-commercial only | Adequate for OSINT/research, prohibited for monetized products. | |
| Meta Content Library | Academic / non-profit researchers only | Most journalists need a university partner to qualify. |
| TikTok Research API | Academic-affiliated researchers only | Same eligibility gate as MCL. |
| API | Free tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| api.data.gov umbrella key | One key for 25+ federal agencies, 450+ APIs | Gateway for NASA, NPS, NIH, USGS, FDA, EPA, LoC, etc. Use this first. |
| api.congress.gov | Free with api.data.gov key | Official Library of Congress legislative data. Replaces ProPublica Congress API. |
| GovInfo (GPO) | Uses api.data.gov key | Federal-publication search and full-text. New MCP server in public preview for LLM workflows. |
| OpenFEC | Free, api.data.gov key | Campaign finance. (Page ECONNREFUSED on verification day — confirm rate limits live.) |
| Census API | Free, no documented rate limits | Demographic / economic data. |
| BLS | 500 queries/day, 25 series/query with key (uncertain — page 403'd; verify) | Labor statistics. |
| BEA | Free with key | National income & product accounts. |
| EPA Envirofacts | Free, no auth | TRI, Superfund, ECHO, RCRAInfo, SDWIS, GHG, RadNet, FRS — ~20 EPA programs. |
| USGS earthquakes | Free, no auth | Real-time + historical earthquake events. GeoJSON / QuakeML / CSV. |
| API | Free tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| NWS api.weather.gov | Fully free, no key, just User-Agent header | "Generous" rate limit. Forecasts, alerts, observations, gridpoints. US only. |
| Open-Meteo | Free non-commercial: 600/min, 10k/day, 300k/month, no key | CC BY 4.0 attribution required. Global. Commercial use requires paid. |
| OpenWeather | 60 calls/min, 1M calls/mo on free tier | Historical weather, 30-day forecasts, Bulk Download, Weather History API are paid. Students get historical via student program. |
| API | Free tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| FRED (St. Louis Fed) | Free with key (uncertain — page 403'd; verify limits) | Primary reference for US macro data. |
| CoinGecko Demo | 10k calls/mo, 30/min, free with key | Attribution required. |
| Alpha Vantage | 25 requests/day | Free tier is now a demo, not a usable journalism data source. Migration target for IEX Cloud users — but expect to need a paid tier for any real workload. |
| Financial Modeling Prep | Free tier exists, paid for production | IEX Cloud successor. |
| API | Free tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Wayback Machine | Free | Availability JSON, Memento, CDX server. Save Page Now exposes programmatic submit. |
| archive.today | Programmatic submit available; no public API docs (uncertain — WebFetch blocked) | Useful for redundancy alongside Wayback. Verify endpoint by direct curl. |
| API | Free tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hugging Face Inference Providers | $0.10/month free credit, then pay-as-you-go | 2024 rebrand from "Inference API." Plain HF Inference now mostly CPU-only (embeddings, BERT-class). PRO users get $2/month. |
| Cohere | Free trial key for development, rate-limited | Paid for production. |
| API | Free tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| TheSportsDB | Free at point of access | $9/mo premium for production key. |
| football-data.org | Free tier covers 12 major competitions | UCL, Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, etc. |
When picking an API for a journalism project, check three things on the provider's developer docs:
| Field | What to check |
|---|---|
| Auth | "No auth" = no registration. "Key required" = sign up + manage the key. OAuth = per-user flow. |
| Free-tier limits | Daily / monthly request caps, rate limits per minute, article delay (often 12–24h on free tiers), recency window. |
| Commercial restriction | Many "free" APIs prohibit commercial use. Even an internal newsroom tool that supports paid coverage may count. Read the ToS. |
| CORS | Matters for browser frontends, irrelevant for backend scripts and cron jobs. |
| Stability commitment | Some "free firehose" APIs (e.g., Bluesky Jetstream) have no long-term stability commitment. Don't depend on them in production without a fallback. |
For any new project needing external data: check the journalism-curated list above first. If nothing fits, search public-apis/public-apis. Feed candidate API docs to an agent along with your specific use case — it'll spot rate-limit / commercial-use traps that a casual read would miss.
2026-05-09. Verified directly against provider pages where reachable; uncertain entries marked inline with the specific provider page that failed verification (403, ECONNREFUSED, login-walled). Re-verify rate-limit numbers before depending on them in production.
Curation under current free-tier conditions is what paid alternatives like RapidAPI's directory don't provide. Coverage is what public-apis/public-apis is for.
