Gov Bc Ca BC Data Catalogue API

Name: BC Data Catalogue API
Brand: BC Data Catalogue API
Availability: InStock

✓ Official Vendor SpecData EnrichmentData Transformationoauth2, apiKey22 Endpoints

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the BC Data Catalogue API to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the BC Data Catalogue API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with BC Data Catalogue API.

Search the BC Data Catalogue for packages matching keywords or facets

List all packages currently published on data.gov.bc.ca

Fetch full metadata, resources, and distributions for a single package

GET STARTED

Start building with BC Data Catalogue API

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View OpenAPI Document

For Agents

Search and retrieve metadata for British Columbia open government datasets exposed through the CKAN-based BC Data Catalogue.

Use for: Search the BC Data Catalogue for groundwater datasets, List recently updated BC open data packages, Get the full metadata for a single BC data package by name, Find all packages tagged with transportation

Not supported: Does not host the dataset files themselves, run analytical queries inside datasets, or expose non-BC government data - use for BC Data Catalogue metadata search and retrieval only.

The BC Data Catalogue API provides programmatic access to the Province of British Columbia's open data catalogue, built on the open-source CKAN platform. It exposes search, package (dataset) listing, package detail, tag enumeration, and revision history endpoints, so applications can find authoritative BC government datasets and link to their distributions. Authentication is anonymous for read access and supports a CKAN API key for write or restricted operations. The catalogue covers thousands of provincial datasets across natural resources, transportation, demographics, and public services.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use BC Data Catalogue API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Open Data Discovery Portal

Build a province-wide dataset search experience by querying the BC Data Catalogue from a custom front end. GET /action/package_search accepts CKAN-style query syntax and returns packages with their resources, while /action/package_show returns full metadata for a selected dataset. Useful for embedding BC open data search into a research portal without re-hosting the catalogue.

Search the BC Data Catalogue for packages matching 'wildfire' and return the title and dataset ID of the top five results.

Dataset Refresh Monitoring

Track when BC government datasets are revised so downstream pipelines can re-pull updated CSVs. /action/package_activity_list returns the activity stream for a package and /action/package_revision_list returns its revisions, so a monitoring agent can detect changes within hours of publication. Reduces stale data risk in derived analytics.

Retrieve the activity list for the package with id 'bc-air-quality-monitoring' and return the timestamp of the most recent revision.

Tag-Driven Dataset Recommendation

Surface related datasets to a user already viewing one by reading the package's tags via /action/package_show, then querying /action/package_search with a tag filter. Tag-based recommendation works without machine learning because the BC Data Catalogue's tag taxonomy is curated by data publishers.

List all tags used in the catalogue, then for the tag 'forestry' return the names of every package tagged with it.

AI Agent for Government Data

An AI research assistant built on Jentic helps an analyst find authoritative BC government data without browsing data.gov.bc.ca by hand. The agent searches Jentic for 'find bc open data', loads the package_search operation, and returns matching datasets with download links from the package's resource list.

Use Jentic to search 'find bc open data', then run package_search with q='salmon' and return the resource download URLs from the top result.

Key Endpoints

22 endpoints — the bc data catalogue api provides programmatic access to the province of british columbia's open data catalogue, built on the open-source ckan platform.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/action/package_search

Search the catalogue for packages

GET

/action/package_list

List all packages in the catalogue

GET

/action/package_show

Retrieve a single package's metadata and resources

GET

/action/tag_list

List all tags used across packages

GET

/action/package_activity_list

List the activity stream for a package

GET

/action/package_autocomplete

Autocomplete package names by prefix

GET

/action/status_show

Confirm the live CKAN API version

GET

/action/package_search

Search the catalogue for packages

GET

/action/package_list

List all packages in the catalogue

GET

/action/package_show

Retrieve a single package's metadata and resources

GET

/action/tag_list

List all tags used across packages

GET

/action/package_activity_list

List the activity stream for a package

Why Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

Any CKAN key needed for restricted reads is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected as the ckan_api_key header at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context, and anonymous reads pass through unchanged.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'find bc open data on wildfires', and Jentic returns the matching package_search operation with its query-parameter schema so the agent issues the correct query without learning CKAN's query DSL up front.

Time to first call

FAQs

Specific to using BC Data Catalogue API through Jentic.

What authentication does the BC Data Catalogue API use?

Read access is anonymous. The spec also defines a CKAN-style internal API key in the ckan_api_key header and a GitHub OAuth flow for restricted operations. Through Jentic, any required CKAN API key is held in the encrypted vault and injected at request time so it never enters the agent's context.

Can I search the BC Data Catalogue for packages with the BC Data Catalogue API?

Yes. GET /action/package_search accepts CKAN-style query syntax including q for keyword search, fq for facet filters, rows for paging, and sort for ordering. The response includes packages with their resources, tags, and metadata.

What are the rate limits for the BC Data Catalogue API?

The OpenAPI spec does not declare specific rate limits. Treat the catalogue as a shared public service: paginate large result sets with rows and start, avoid issuing dozens of parallel searches, and cache package_show responses where possible.

How do I retrieve a single dataset's metadata through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'get bc open data package', load the GET /action/package_show operation, and execute with the package id or name. With pip install jentic the call is one search, one load, one execute and returns the full package record including resource download URLs.

Does the BC Data Catalogue API return downloadable file URLs?

Yes. Package responses include a resources array where each resource carries a url field pointing at the actual data file or service endpoint. Resource URLs link to formats such as CSV, GeoJSON, WMS, and ArcGIS REST services depending on the dataset.

Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the BC Data Catalogue API?

Yes. Because Jentic One is self-hosted, you decide which operations your agent may call, and you can allow only the ones it needs, such as package_search and package_show, while leaving package_list, tag_list, package_activity_list, or status_show out of the allowed set. Since these CKAN operations take their target in query parameters rather than the URL path, the agent cannot reach any dataset or action you have not included. Any CKAN API key for restricted reads is stored once by your own instance and injected at request time, so it never enters the agent's context.