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Data WA CKAN Action API

Landgate leads implementation of the WA Whole of Government Open Data Policy and operates data.wa.gov.au, whose catalogue runs CKAN with the standard /api/3/action surface exposed anonymously. Confirmed 2026-07-26 — status_show, package_search, package_list and organization_show all returned HTTP 200 without credentials; the catalogue holds 2,872 datasets, of which 395 are published by the Landgate organization. A DCAT JSON-LD catalog is served at /catalog.jsonld. Note honestly that the API is open but most Landgate datasets in it carry a custom Landgate licence rather than an open licence (371 of 395 are license_id custom_other; only 2 are public domain and 5 are CC non-commercial).

Data WA CKAN Action API is one of 4 APIs that Landgate publishes on the APIs.io network, described by a machine-readable OpenAPI specification.

Tagged areas include Open Data, Catalog, CKAN, DCAT, and Government. The published artifact set on APIs.io includes an API reference, a JSON-LD context, API documentation, and an OpenAPI specification.

This API exposes 16 operations across 16 paths, organized into 4 resource areas, and defines 6 schemas. It is described by OpenAPI 3.1.0, at version 3.

Requests are made against a single base URL, https://catalogue.data.wa.gov.au.

16 operations 16 paths 6 schemas 16 GET

Metadata

The identity and technical contract details declared by the specification.

Specification
OpenAPI 3.1.0
API Version
3
Base URL
https://catalogue.data.wa.gov.au/api/3/action
Resource Areas
4

Paths & Operations 16

Across 16 paths, the API surfaces 16 operations — 16 GET. They span 4 resource areas: Site, Datasets, Organizations, Discovery. Each is listed below with its method, path, parameters, and response codes.

Site 5

Catalogue-level status and reference lists

GET
/api/3/action/status_show
Get catalogue status
ckanStatusShow → 200
GET
/api/3/action/tag_list
List tags
ckanTagList 2 params → 200
GET
/api/3/action/license_list
List the licences the catalogue recognises
ckanLicenseList → 200
GET
/api/3/action/vocabulary_list
List controlled vocabularies
ckanVocabularyList → 200
GET
/api/3/action/help_show
Get the docstring (parameter reference) for any action
ckanHelpShow 1 param → 200
Datasets 4

Dataset (package) discovery and retrieval

GET
/api/3/action/package_list
List every dataset name in the catalogue
ckanPackageList 2 params → 200
GET
/api/3/action/package_search
Search datasets (Solr query surface)
ckanPackageSearch 7 params → 200
GET
/api/3/action/package_show
Get one dataset with its resources
ckanPackageShow 1 param → 200409
GET
/api/3/action/current_package_list_with_resources
List recent datasets with their resources
ckanCurrentPackageListWithResources 2 params → 200
Organizations 3

Publishing organizations and groups

GET
/api/3/action/organization_list
List publishing organizations
ckanOrganizationList → 200
GET
/api/3/action/organization_show
Get one organization
ckanOrganizationShow 2 params → 200
GET
/api/3/action/group_list
List catalogue groups
ckanGroupList → 200
Discovery 4

Autocomplete, resource search and the DCAT catalog

GET
/api/3/action/resource_search
Search resources (distributions) directly
ckanResourceSearch 3 params → 200
GET
/api/3/action/package_autocomplete
Autocomplete dataset titles
ckanPackageAutocomplete 2 params → 200
GET
/api/3/action/format_autocomplete
Autocomplete resource formats
ckanFormatAutocomplete 2 params → 200
GET
/catalog.jsonld
Get the DCAT catalog as JSON-LD
getDataWaDcatCatalog → 200

Schemas 6

The contract defines 6 schemas that model the data the API accepts and returns. The most detailed are Package (13 properties), Resource (6 properties), Organization (5 properties), ErrorEnvelope (3 properties). Each schema is shown below with its type and property counts.

Envelope
object
Standard CKAN response envelope.
3 properties 2 required
SearchEnvelope
ErrorEnvelope
object
CKAN error envelope (observed on HTTP 409 validation errors).
3 properties
Package
object
A CKAN dataset. Fields observed on this deployment.
13 properties
Resource
object
6 properties
Organization
object
5 properties

Specification

The full machine-readable OpenAPI contract behind this narrative.

Source

landgate-data-wa-ckan-openapi.yml Raw ↑

Other APIs Landgate publishes across the network.

SLIP Public Services (ArcGIS REST)
SLIP Public OGC Web Services (WMS / WFS)
MyLandgate OpenID Connect / OAuth 2.0 (PingFederate)
Where this information came from

This is an independent, third-party profile of Data WA CKAN Action API, published by API Evangelist. We do not operate, host, resell, or support these APIs, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the company unless stated above. Everything here is built from publicly available information — the company's own site, developer portal, documentation, public repositories, and the specifications it publishes for public use. Nothing is obtained by breaching a system, defeating an access control, or using credentials.

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