43-wentorai-research-plugins-skills-domains-economics-fred-api

brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-SkillsFinance & FintechAudit pendingSnapshot b46d4335c4e3

Summary

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SKILL.md

FRED API Guide

Overview

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) is a database maintained by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It contains over 800,000 economic time series from dozens of national and international sources, covering macroeconomic indicators, financial markets, employment, trade, monetary policy, and more.

The FRED API provides programmatic access to this extensive economic data repository. Researchers can retrieve time series observations, search for data series by keyword or category, explore release schedules, and access vintage (real-time) data for historical analysis. The data spans decades and in some cases centuries, making it invaluable for longitudinal economic research.

Economists, financial analysts, policy researchers, data scientists, and academic institutions rely on the FRED API for econometric modeling, macroeconomic forecasting, policy analysis, and teaching. It is one of the most widely used economic data APIs in academic research and is cited in thousands of peer-reviewed publications.

Authentication

Authentication requires a free API key from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Register for an account at https://fredaccount.stlouisfed.org/login/secure/
Request an API key at https://fredaccount.stlouisfed.org/apikeys
Include the key as the api_key query parameter in all requests

curl "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series?series_id=GDP&api_key=YOUR_KEY&file_type=json"

API keys are free and available to anyone who registers. There is no fee or approval process.

Core Endpoints

series: Retrieve Series Metadata

Get metadata about a specific economic data series, including title, frequency, units, seasonal adjustment, and date range.

URL: GET https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series
Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
series_id	string	Yes	FRED series identifier (e.g., `GDP`)
api_key	string	Yes	Your FRED API key
file_type	string	No	Response format: `json` or `xml` (default)

curl "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series?series_id=UNRATE&api_key=YOUR_KEY&file_type=json"

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
series_id	string	Yes	FRED series identifier
api_key	string	Yes	Your FRED API key
observation_start	string	No	Start date in YYYY-MM-DD format
observation_end	string	No	End date in YYYY-MM-DD format
frequency	string	No	Aggregation: `d`, `w`, `m`, `q`, `a`
aggregation_method	string	No	`avg`, `sum`, `eop` (end of period)
file_type	string	No	`json` or `xml`

curl "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/observations?series_id=GDP&observation_start=2020-01-01&api_key=YOUR_KEY&file_type=json"

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
category_id	int	Yes	Category ID (0 for root)
api_key	string	Yes	Your FRED API key
file_type	string	No	`json` or `xml`

curl "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/category/children?category_id=0&api_key=YOUR_KEY&file_type=json"

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
api_key	string	Yes	Your FRED API key
file_type	string	No	`json` or `xml`

curl "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/releases?api_key=YOUR_KEY&file_type=json"

import requests

params = {
    "series_id": "GDP",
    "api_key": "YOUR_KEY",
    "file_type": "json",
    "observation_start": "2015-01-01"
}
resp = requests.get("https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/observations", params=params)
data = resp.json()

for obs in data["observations"]:
    print(f"{obs['date']}: ${obs['value']}B")

import requests

series_ids = ["UNRATE", "CPIAUCSL", "FEDFUNDS", "GDP"]
api_key = os.environ["FRED_API_KEY"]

for sid in series_ids:
    resp = requests.get("https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/observations", params={
        "series_id": sid,
        "api_key": api_key,
        "file_type": "json",
        "observation_start": "2020-01-01",
        "frequency": "m"
    })
    obs = resp.json()["observations"]
    print(f"{sid}: {len(obs)} monthly observations retrieved")

curl "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/search?search_text=consumer+price+index&api_key=YOUR_KEY&file_type=json&limit=10"

43-wentorai-research-plugins-skills-domains-economics-fred-api

Summary

SKILL.md

FRED API Guide

Overview

Authentication

Core Endpoints

series: Retrieve Series Metadata

observations: Retrieve Time Series Data

category: Browse Data Categories

releases: Track Data Release Schedules

Rate Limits

Common Patterns

Retrieve and Plot GDP Data

Compare Multiple Economic Indicators

Search for Series by Keyword

References

Related skills