choosing-an-api

choosing-an-api is a skill for Claude Code from Manavarya09/public-apis-live. It costs 42 tokens per session (170 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A method for choosing a public API, meaning an online service that provides data or actions such as weather or images. It searches a live directory for reachable, duplicate-free options and checks their access requirements.

In plain words
What is it for?
Finding APIs by category or search term, preferring options without login when suitable, and checking the service URL, HTTPS support, authentication, and reachability.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of guessing a provider that is unavailable, requires unexpected authentication, or does not fit the task.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the public-apis-live plugin — 1 skill shipped together

Good fit Finding APIs by category or search term, preferring options without login when suitable, and checking the service URL, HTTPS support, authentication, and reachability.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/manavarya09/public-apis-live/choosing-an-api
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add Manavarya09/public-apis-live --skill choosing-an-api
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Manavarya09/public-apis-live

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install public-apis-live, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 1 skill.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for choosing-an-api

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/manavarya09/public-apis-live/choosing-an-api/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/manavarya09/public-apis-live/choosing-an-api)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/manavarya09/public-apis-live/choosing-an-api"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/manavarya09/public-apis-live/choosing-an-api/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for choosing-an-api

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/manavarya09/public-apis-live/choosing-an-api"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/manavarya09/public-apis-live/choosing-an-api.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 42 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 170 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00042 $0.00170
Opus 5 $0.00021 $0.00085
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00034
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00017

Measured 12d ago against content hash f3e9b4a222ea, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

choosing-an-api scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 12d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

packages/plugin/skills/choosing-an-api/SKILL.md · 17 lines

What it actually says

Choosing a Public API

When a task needs an external data source or service, query the public-apis-live MCP tools before guessing a provider:

  1. list_categories to see what's available.
  2. search_apis with a category and/or search term; prefer status: "up" and auth: "none" for zero-setup options.
  3. get_api for full details (URL, auth, HTTPS) before recommending one.

Always tell the user the auth requirement and that status reflects reachability, not functional testing.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 12d ago First seen · 17 lines · 42 tokens per session scan A f3e9b4a222ea

Subscribe to this mod's changes

choosing-an-api is a skill published in the GitHub repository Manavarya09/public-apis-live (144 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 42 tokens to every session and 170 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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