Public data API

The live site is a searchable, filterable, shareable map of licensed Illinois daycare providers; this page documents the static JSON you can fetch over HTTPS to use the same dataset in your own app, notebook, or script. There are no query parameters or server-side filters—download the file and filter client-side.

Endpoints

• GET /api/v1/providers.json — JSON array of all providers (canonical URL for integrations).
• GET /providers.json — same payload; kept for backward compatibility.
• GET /api/v1/provider.schema.json — JSON Schema (draft 2020-12) describing one object in the array.
• GET /api/openapi.yaml — OpenAPI 3 description of these routes (for documentation tooling).

Map URL (shared searches)

On the map, filters and search text can be encoded as ?s=<base64url> (compact JSON). Optional plain query parameters are also read: q, ft (comma-separated DCC/DCH/GDC), st (comma-separated licensed/pending/other), sort, night=1, fav=1, md (max distance mi), rings=1, addr, and lat / lon / ulbl for a shared map pin. Favorites and saved searches stay in the browser only and are not in the API JSON.

Usage notes

• Responses are UTF-8 JSON. Cache aggressively; the file changes when the data pipeline runs.
• Coordinates are WGS84 (lat, lon). See the About page for geocoding caveats.
• GitHub Pages does not add custom CORS headers. Browsers may block cross-origin fetch from other sites; use a same-origin proxy or load from a server-side environment if you hit that limit.
• License: MIT (see repository LICENSE). Data is from public state sources; verify with DCFS before relying on it for compliance.