Overview:
The Federal LCA Commons API has been updated with two new flow usage search endpoints, with API key authentication managed through api.nal.usda.gov. Additionally, the LCA Commons API Guide has been corrected to accurately reflect the endpoint paths as they appear through the NAL gateway.
The API now supports seven public endpoints covering the most common data access workflows:
- searching datasets across repositories,
- downloading individual datasets as JSON-LD,
- preparing and downloading full repository files,
- retrieving files attached to specific datasets,
- searching for datasets that reference a specific flow,
- and searching for datasets where a specific flow appears as an input or output.
New Endpoints:
Two flow usage search endpoints are now available through the NAL API gateway:
- /search/usage/{refId} – returns datasets that reference a specific flow across repositories.
- /search/usage/{flowRefId}?field=inputs or ?field=outputs – returns datasets where a specific flow appears as an input or output.
Both endpoints support repositoryId and page/pageSize parameters for filtering and pagination.
These endpoints enable users to trace how a specific flow is used across the LCA Commons, a capability particularly valuable for data quality review, impact analysis, and building system models. For example, a researcher can now identify all processes that consume or produce a given flow, such as a specific energy carrier, chemical, or waste stream, without manually browsing individual datasets. This supports more efficient cross-repository consistency checks, helps users understand the downstream dependencies of a flow before modifying it, and lays groundwork for automated data lineage tracking.
Documentation Update:
The LCA Commons API Guide has been updated to reflect the correct endpoint paths as routed through the NAL API gateway. The endpoint table has been corrected to remove the /ws/public/ prefix, which applies to the direct LCA Collaboration Server path but is not used when accessing endpoints through the NAL gateway. Example requests and the full API specification remain available via the Federal LCA Commons API Specification and as a static HTML file for offline use.