--- title: "What is a data API?" description: "**Canonical URL:** https://jobspipe.dev/answers/what-is-a-data-api" canonical: https://jobspipe.dev/answers/what-is-a-data-api last_updated: 2026-09-10 --- # What is a data API? > A data API is an interface whose purpose is to deliver records: you send a query with filters and paging, and it returns structured data such as JSON rows. It differs from an application API, which exposes the actions of a product, like creating an order or sending a message. A data API is read-heavy and built for retrieval. **Canonical URL:** https://jobspipe.dev/answers/what-is-a-data-api **Topic:** Jobs API (https://jobspipe.dev/jobs-api) The design choices follow from that purpose. A data API needs a stable schema, because consumers store what it returns. It needs filters that map to real questions, not just a primary key lookup. It needs cursor pagination so a consumer can walk a large result set without missing or repeating rows. It needs a way to fetch only what changed since the last call, so pipelines do not re-read the whole corpus. And it needs provenance on each record: where the row came from and when it was last confirmed. Application APIs rarely need any of these, since their unit of work is an action, not a dataset. JobsPipe is a data API for job postings. One endpoint, POST /v1/jobs/search, accepts filters such as job_title_or, job_country_code_or, remote, skills_or, min_salary_usd and status, and returns normalized rows with fields including job_title, company, date_posted, discovered_at, last_seen_at, status, closed_at and ghost_score, each with its source board under sources. A cursor pages through results, discovered_at_gte returns only postings first seen since a timestamp, and status set to closed returns postings that have ended, so the same endpoint serves a live search box and a nightly pipeline. You can see the shape without an account. The sandbox endpoint accepts the same request body as the live one and answers with sample records in the identical schema, no key and no quota, so a consumer can build the parser and the paging loop first and switch to a live key from the dashboard afterwards. ## Related questions ### What is the difference between a data API and a REST API? REST is an architectural style and a data API is a purpose. Most data APIs are REST or GraphQL over HTTP, so the two overlap. The distinction is what the endpoints do: a data API's endpoints query and return records, while an application API's endpoints perform actions in a product. JobsPipe is a REST-style data API. ### What is an example of a data API? Weather feeds, financial market data, public statistics services and job posting APIs are all data APIs. JobsPipe is the last kind: POST /v1/jobs/search returns live and closed postings from the collected boards as normalized JSON, and POST /v1/stack/scan returns the technologies a domain serves. Both answer queries rather than perform actions. ### Is a data API the same as a dataset? No. A dataset is a fixed file: what was true when it was assembled. A data API is a live interface you query, and the dataset it returns depends on your filters and on when you ask. You can build a dataset from a data API by paging through results and polling with discovered_at_gte for new rows. ### How are data APIs usually priced? Most meter by record returned or by request, with a free allowance for evaluation and volume tiers above it. JobsPipe charges one credit per job returned, so a search that matches nothing costs nothing, the free tier covers 1,000 jobs a month, and the sandbox is unmetered because it returns sample data. ## More answers - [Where to find datasets?](https://jobspipe.dev/answers/where-to-find-datasets) - [How to create a dataset?](https://jobspipe.dev/answers/how-to-create-a-dataset) - [Where to find API key?](https://jobspipe.dev/answers/where-to-find-your-api-key) Data behind these answers is published as shares only; every figure can be reproduced against the JobsPipe API (https://jobspipe.dev/jobs-api). --- AI agents: the full machine-readable index of this site is https://jobspipe.dev/llms.txt?src=md-twin - API quickstart, no-key sandbox (POST https://api.jobspipe.dev/v1/sandbox/jobs/search), MCP server, pricing. Free key: https://jobspipe.dev/signup