Command-line tool and TypeScript library
ckan
Search any CKAN open-data portal from your terminal. ckan is a command-line tool over the CKAN Action API (<portal>/api/3/action), which many public-sector catalogues run on. Out of the box it talks to the Hamburg Transparenzportal (suche.transparenz.hamburg.de), and --base-url points it at any other CKAN: search, inspect, filter and pipe straight into jq.
Install
Needs Node.js 20 or newer. Installs the ckan command:
npm i -g @maschinenlesbar.org/ckan-cliAccess
No account, no API key, no configuration — install and query.
Quick start
ckan search elbe --rows 5Commands
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searchSearch datasets (Solr query syntax)
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packageShow one dataset by id or name
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resourceShow one resource (distribution) by id
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organizationShow one organization (publisher) by id or name
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groupShow one group (theme/category) by id or name
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packagesList dataset names
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organizationsList organizations (data publishers)
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groupsList groups (themes/categories)
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tagsList tags
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statusShow the portal's site title, CKAN version and extensions
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licensesList the licences the portal offers
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actionCall any CKAN action by name (generic escape hatch)
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portalsList the known CKAN portals in Germany (use one with --portal <id>)
Claude Code skills
The ckan plugin teaches Claude to use ckan. Install it from the maschinenlesbar.org marketplace:
/plugin marketplace add maschinenlesbar-org/plugins
/plugin install ckan@maschinenlesbar/ckan:ckan-catalogue-stats/ckan:ckan-dataset-finder/ckan:ckan-hamburg-transparency
What the skills answer, with real examples → Skill descriptions and requirements →
TypeScript library
@maschinenlesbar.org/ckan-cli is also a typed API client you can import in your own code, with no runtime HTTP dependencies.
The tool, not the data
The data comes from the provider behind the API, under its own terms — see DATA_LICENSE.md. The code is dual-licensed AGPL-3.0-or-later or commercial — see LICENSING.md.