Command-line tool and TypeScript library
govdata
Browse Germany’s central open-data catalogue from your terminal. govdata is a command-line tool over the GovData CKAN Action API (ckan.govdata.de) — the national portal that federates open datasets from federal government, federal states and municipalities: search, inspect, filter and pipe straight into jq.
Install
Needs Node.js 20 or newer. Installs the govdata command:
npm i -g @maschinenlesbar.org/govdata-cliAccess
No account, no API key, no configuration — install and query.
Quick start
govdata search Haushalt --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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packagesList dataset names
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organizationsList organizations (data publishers)
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organizationShow one organization
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groupsList groups (themes/categories)
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groupShow one group
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tagsList tags
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resourceShow one resource (distribution) by id
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actionCall any CKAN action by name (generic escape hatch)
Claude Code skills
The govdata plugin teaches Claude to use govdata. Install it from the maschinenlesbar.org marketplace:
/plugin marketplace add maschinenlesbar-org/plugins
/plugin install govdata@maschinenlesbar/govdata:govdata-catalogue-stats/govdata:govdata-dataset-finder/govdata:govdata-resource-harvest
What the skills answer, with real examples → Skill descriptions and requirements →
TypeScript library
@maschinenlesbar.org/govdata-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.