Congress Dot Gov - Example API Client

Example code for a CDG API Client is located here.

Important note about the API Authorization Key

The API key assigned to your organization is not meant to be shared. It should:

• Not be copied directly into source code, particularly code that will be committed to source control and uploaded to centralized servers and/or cloud hosting services, such as github, bitbucket, or others.

• Nor should it be given as a command-line parameter, which are typically recorded to a history file.

Your API key may be passed to the service in a few different ways. Pick which ever method is easiest for you:

• The API may support passing the API key into the api_key GET query string parameter:

  • curl 'https://api.congress.gov/v3/bill/117/hr/3076/titles?api_key=[INSERT_KEY]’
  • https://api.congress.gov/v3/bill/117/hr/3076/titles?api_key=[INSERT_KEY]

• Pass the API key into the X-Api-Key header:

  • curl -H 'API_KEY': [INSERT_KEY]' ''https://api.congress.gov/v3/bill/117/hr/3076/titles?limit=1'

Use a secure storage system of your choosing which can deploy the key securely to your application. In absence of such system, other reasonable choices are:

• Put the key into a separate configuration file in an external folder with tight access permissions, i.e. only readable by the application's user account. This reduces the likelihood of it being recorded in version control.

• For manually run programs, use the "keyring" functionality of your Operating System to store the secret (see Python example).

Example Code

There are examples in more than one programming language, see the subfolders in this repository. Kindly click on the folders to view.

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