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OpenStreetMap website screenshot

OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a collaborative project to create a free, editable map of the world. The OSM ecosystem exposes a family of public REST APIs: the main editing API (v0.6) for CRUD operations on map data, the Overpass API for complex read-only geospatial queries, and the Nominatim API for forward and reverse geocoding. Map data is licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0 and tile imagery under CC BY-SA 2.0.

agent ready

Solid contracts, transparent operations, and an easy start — typically complete on four or five facets with one clear soft spot.

Kin Score

API Evangelist profiles OpenStreetMap the way a machine reads it — 46 machine-readable artifacts across 9 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.

Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — OpenStreetMap scores 66.4/100 (strong), with a separate agent-readiness read of 48/100 (agent ready). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.

Kin Score

This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 66.4/100 · strong
Contract Quality 18.4 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 8.3 / 20
Commercial Clarity 12.1 / 20
Operational Transparency 4.8 / 13
Governance 8.8 / 12
Discoverability 10.0 / 10
Regulatory · Government & Public Sector 13.4 / 15
Agent readiness — 48/100 · agent ready
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 15 / 15
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

How we profile OpenStreetMap

Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for OpenStreetMap. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.

APIs 9

Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

OpenStreetMap Overpass API

The Overpass API is a read-only database engine for complex geospatial queries against the OSM dataset. Accepts Overpass QL or XML queries and returns results in XML, JSON, GeoJ...

OpenStreetMap Capabilities API

API version and limits

OpenStreetMap Changesets API

Changeset management for grouped edits

OpenStreetMap Map Data API

Bulk map data retrieval by bounding box

OpenStreetMap Nodes API

OSM node (point) operations

OpenStreetMap Notes API

Community map notes

OpenStreetMap Relations API

OSM relation operations

OpenStreetMap Users API

User account information

OpenStreetMap Ways API

OSM way (line/polygon) operations

Scroll within the panel for all 9 ·

Open Collections 1

Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

OpenStreetMap API v0.6

OPEN COLLECTION

Pricing Plans 1

Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Rate Limits 1

Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Openstreetmap Rate Limits

4 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Features 16

The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.

Notable capabilities this provider offers.

Free open OSM data under ODbL license
Public API (osm.org) free for personal/educational use
AUP requires self-hosting or 3rd-party for production / heavy use
Tile server: 2 req/sec/IP cap
Nominatim: 1 req/sec/IP cap
Overpass API: 2 concurrent/IP cap
Self-hosting: osm2pgsql + Nominatim + tile renderer (Tilemaker, Mapnik)
Third-party providers: Mapbox, MapTiler, Geoapify, Stadia Maps, TomTom
Editing API for contributing data (free for verified users)
Planet downloads (XML or PBF)
Diff replication (minutely/hourly/daily)
Vector tiles via OpenMapTiles, Shortbread, Versatiles
Funded by OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) donations + corporate sponsors
Data updated continuously by ~10K daily contributors
Foundation policy: https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/
Wiki: wiki.openstreetmap.org

Scroll within the panel for all 16 ·

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Openstreetmap Context

21 classes · 13 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.

OpenStreetMap API Rules

5 rules · 4 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 9

Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Capabilities

6 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Changeset

13 properties

JSON SCHEMA

OpenStreetMap Node

11 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Note

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

NoteCollection

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

OSMData

9 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Relation

7 properties

JSON SCHEMA

User

8 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Way

10 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Scroll within the panel for all 9 ·

JSON Structure 1

JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Openstreetmap Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Security Posture 3

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Openstreetmap Authentication

oauth2 · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Openstreetmap Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Openstreetmap Vulnerability Disclosure

security.txt · contact published

SECURITY

Scopes 1

OAuth scopes are the vocabulary of least-privilege access. Profiling them shows exactly what an integration — or an agent acting on a user's behalf — is allowed to do.

OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.

Openstreetmap Scopes

7 scopes · authorizationCode

7 scopes

SCOPES

Agentic Access 1

An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Openstreetmap Agentic Access

18 operations · 8 acting

18 operations · 8 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Every other property we hold for OpenStreetMap — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Design & Contract 1

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Operate 3

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Company 3

The organization behind the API

← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/openstreetmap · machine-readable index on apis.io