Colorado Information Marketplace API
Free Colorado state open data API with no key: enumerate every dataset on the portal with its owner, update times, provenance and approval history. Tested example included.
Endpoint tested and returned HTTP 200 on 2026-08-21
What is the Colorado Information Marketplace API?
The Colorado Information Marketplace is the state's Socrata open data portal. Its metadata API lists every published asset with attribution, category, creation and update timestamps, provenance and the full approval workflow trail, all without an API key.
This is the endpoint to reach for when you want the catalogue rather than the contents. `/api/views/metadata/v1` walks every asset on the domain — datasets, charts, maps and stories alike — and returns the state's own housekeeping alongside it. The `provenance` field marks whether an asset is `OFFICIAL` state output or community-contributed, which is a distinction most portals do not surface at all.
The most unusual part of the response is `approvals`. Colorado exposes its internal review workflow: who reviewed each asset, when, whether the decision was automated, which workflow it ran through and what the outcome was, complete with the reviewer's display name. If you are researching how governments actually operate open data programmes rather than just consuming their outputs, that audit trail is more interesting than the datasets. Pair it with the Socrata Discovery API when you need to search across many portals at once instead of enumerating one.
Quick facts
- Base URL
https://data.colorado.gov/api/views/metadata/v1- Authentication
- No key required. A free Socrata app token raises throttling limits for bulk enumeration.
- Rate limit
- Anonymous per-IP throttling. Enumerate the catalogue once and cache it rather than re-walking it per request.
- Pricing
- Free. Individual datasets carry their own terms; the metadata itself is open.
- CORS
- Enabled — callable directly from browser JavaScript
- Official docs
- Read the docs
How to use the Colorado Information Marketplace API
Every request below was executed against the live API on 2026-08-21, and the response shown is the real body it returned — not an illustration.
1. List Colorado state open data assets
GET https://data.colorado.gov/api/views/metadata/v1?limit=1
curl 'https://data.colorado.gov/api/views/metadata/v1?limit=1'const res = await fetch("https://data.colorado.gov/api/views/metadata/v1?limit=1");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${res.status}`);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);import requests
res = requests.get("https://data.colorado.gov/api/views/metadata/v1?limit=1", timeout=20)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json())[
{
"id": "wtbh-dr34",
"name": "Getting Started with the Colorado Information Marketplace",
"attribution": "OIT - CDO - Open Data Team",
"attributionLink": null,
"category": "CIM Knowledge Base",
"createdAt": "2026-08-14T18:15:20+0000",
"dataUpdatedAt": "2026-08-14T18:15:20+0000",
"dataUri": "https://data.colorado.gov/resource/wtbh-dr34",
"description": "How to: Getting Started with the Colorado Information Marketplace",
"domain": "data.colorado.gov",
"externalId": null,
"hideFromCatalog": false,
"hideFromDataJson": false,
"license": null,
"metadataUpdatedAt": "2026-08-14T20:50:23+0000",
"provenance": "OFFICIAL",
"updatedAt": "2026-08-14T20:50:23+0000",
"webUri": "https://data.colorado.gov/stories/s/wtbh-dr34",
"approvals": [
{
"reviewedAt": 1786736978,
"reviewedAutomatically": false,
"state": "approved",
"submissionId": 7623201,
"submissionObject": "public_audience_request",
"submissionOutcome": "change_audience",
"submittedAt": 1786736964,
"targetAudience": "public",
"workflowId": 1726,
"reviewer": {
"id": "bzru-y32e",
"displayName": "Timothy Andrews"
},
"submissionDetails": {
"permissionType": "read"
},
"submissionOutcomeApplication": {
"endedAt": 1786736979,
"failureCount": 0,
"startedAt": 1786736978,
"status": "success"
},
"submitter": {
"id": "bzru-y32e",
"displayName":Parameters
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
limit | query | Optional | Assets per page. Keep it small while exploring. 1 |
offset | query | Optional | Pagination offset for walking the whole catalogue. 100 |
ids | query | Optional | Restrict to specific four-by-four asset IDs. wtbh-dr34 |
Response fields
idstring- The Socrata four-by-four identifier, for example `wtbh-dr34`. Use it to build the `/resource/{id}.json` data URL.
name / descriptionstring- Human title and summary of the asset.
attribution / attributionLinkstring- Publishing office and its website. Often more specific than the department name.
categorystring- Portal category such as `CIM Knowledge Base` or a subject area.
provenancestring- `OFFICIAL` for state-produced assets; other values mark community contributions.
dataUpdatedAt / metadataUpdatedAtstring- Two distinct timestamps — the data and its description change independently.
dataUri / webUristring- Direct API endpoint and the human-facing page for the asset.
approvalsarray- Internal review trail: reviewer, timestamps as Unix epochs, workflow ID, target audience and outcome.
hideFromCatalog / hideFromDataJsonboolean- Whether the asset is suppressed from the portal listing or the DCAT feed.
What you can build with the Colorado Information Marketplace API
- Mirror the full Colorado catalogue into your own search index
- Detect newly published or newly updated state datasets
- Separate official state output from community-contributed assets
- Resolve a dataset name to the four-by-four ID needed for data queries
- Study open data governance using the approval workflow records
Common errors and how to fix them
Empty array
The `offset` has run past the end of the catalogue.
Fix: Stop paging when a page returns fewer rows than `limit`.
429
Anonymous throttling during a full catalogue walk.
Fix: Back off and cache. A free app token raises the ceiling considerably.
404 on /resource/{id}.json
The asset is a chart, map or story rather than a tabular dataset.
Fix: Only tabular assets have a `/resource` endpoint; check `dataUri` before assuming one exists.
Timestamps look wrong
`approvals` uses Unix epoch seconds while the top-level fields use ISO 8601.
Fix: Handle the two formats separately rather than passing both to the same parser.
Colorado Information Marketplace API — frequently asked questions
Is the Colorado open data API free?
Yes. Both the metadata API and the per-dataset data endpoints work without a key. A free Socrata app token exists purely to raise rate limits.
What is a four-by-four ID?
Socrata's asset identifier: two groups of four characters separated by a hyphen, such as `wtbh-dr34`. It appears in every metadata record and forms the data URL, `https://data.colorado.gov/resource/{id}.json`.
What does provenance OFFICIAL mean?
That the asset was produced and published by a state body rather than contributed by an outside user. Socrata portals can host community assets alongside official ones, and this field is how you tell them apart.
Can I search across other states' portals too?
Yes, but not with this endpoint — it enumerates a single domain. The Socrata Discovery API queries thousands of Socrata domains at once and returns the same asset identifiers.
Tools that pair with this API
JSON to CSV Converter
Convert a JSON array of objects to CSV online. Automatic column headers from the union of all keys, delimiter choice and proper quoting — all in-browser.
JSON Path Finder
Evaluate a dot/bracket path against your JSON and list every leaf path for discovery. Free online JSON path finder that runs 100% in your browser.
Timestamp Converter
Convert timestamps to human-readable dates and dates back to timestamps. Auto-detects seconds vs milliseconds, shows local, UTC and ISO 8601 formats.
Colorado Information Marketplace is an independent third-party service and is not affiliated with ByteTools or ByteVancer. Details on this page were verified on 2026-08-21; always check the official documentation before relying on this API in production, as terms and limits can change.