Ardent API

The Ardent API powers ardent-insight.com

The API is considered resonably stable and no breaking changes are anticipated, but expect evolution of parameters that can be passed and enrichment of responses.

The internal logic for routes may evolve over time and this may cause the content of responses to vary, based on changes to internal filters, how data is processed and changes in retention policies.

Related repositories:

• https://github.com/iaincollins/ardent-www
• https://github.com/iaincollins/ardent-collector
• https://github.com/iaincollins/ardent-auth

About this software

The Ardent API provides access to data submitted to the Elite Dangerous Data Network and is stored by the Ardent Collector.

The API provides an interface to look up location data for 150,000,000 star systems and tracks millions of buy and sell orders for trade commodities sold in stations, ports and on fleet carriers throughout the Elite Dangerous galaxy.

About the REST API

The folllowing is a summary of supported API endpoints and a description of the behaviour and options supported.

• The endpoints are versioned but there may still be changes in the logic of how requests are handled and exactly what data returned in response to a query as functionality is expanded on and refined. For example, what results are filtered out, or not filterd out, by default may change, but any changes to requests or responses should typically be additive rather than be breaking changes.

• The fleetCarriers boolean option supported on some of the endpoints is null by default. If set to true or 1 the response will only include results for fleet carriers, if set to false or 0 the response will exclude results for fleet carriers. If not specified, or set to any other value, the response will include results for all stations (including from, but not limited to, fleet carriers).

• The maxDistance option is light-years (ly) and is used to filter results from other systems based on the distance of that systems main star from the main star of the system the result is relative to. You cannot specify a fractional value in light seconds (ls) to filter results within a system; although the approximate distance to the main star for each station is displayed (when known) it is not taken into account.

• As of version 3.0.0 of the code the commodity import and export endpoints support a maxDaysAgo option that defaults to 30 days. This filters out data older than 30 days from results by default, which makes results more relevant and improves response times. You can still request to include older data by explicitly specifying a greater value. Records are updated when newer information is submitted.

• The API examples below show using system name but in addition to system name you can query by system address. Using the System Address allows for disambiguation in cases where there is more than one system with the same name.

For example, the following queries are equivalent:

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/address/10477373803

As are these requests:

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/stations
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/address/10477373803/stations

There are over 1,300 known ambigiously named systems in the database, out of approximately 150,000,000 recorded systems.

The service provides a hint when querying if there is known to be another system with a similar name.

Examples of queries for ambigiously named systems:

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/C%20Velorum
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/i%20Carinae
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/I%20Carinae
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/address/5533856349
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/search/system/name/C%20Vel

REST API Endpoints

Get version

Get Ardent API software version.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/version

Get statistics

Get statistics for the current databases (updated every 15 minutes).

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/stats

    Star systems: 102,694,411
    Trade systems: 16,419
    Trade stations: 42,695
    Trade carriers: 5,360
    Trade orders: 10,773,236
    Trade updates in last 24 hours: 563,215
    Trade updates in last 7 days: 2,475,140
    Trade updates in last 30 days: 7,234,476

Additional stats endpoints for data related to stations:

• https://api.ardent-industry.com/v2/stats/stations/economies
• https://api.ardent-industry.com/v2/stats/stations/types

Get commodities reports

The Commodities report includes all known traded commodities, their price ranges (min/max/avg) and the total supply and demand for each commodity.

The commodity report excludes market data from Fleet Carriers.

It is updated daily.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/commodities

Example commodities report

[ ... {
  "commodityName": "gold",
  "maxBuyPrice": 59797,
  "minBuyPrice": 3979,
  "avgBuyPrice": 44441,
  "totalStock": 73016533,
  "maxSellPrice": 70761,
  "minSellPrice": 3978,
  "avgSellPrice": 48259,
  "totalDemand": 1899662825
} ... ]

Commodity information

Get information for a commodity

Get summary report for a commodity.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/commodity/name/{commodityName}

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/commodity/name/gold

Get importers for a commodity

Get a list of places importing a commodity - places you can sell to - ordered by the highest price they are willing to pay. Returns best 100 matching results.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/commodity/name/{commodityName}/imports

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/commodity/name/gold/imports

Supported query parameters

• minVolume (int); default 1
• minPrice (int); default 1
• fleetCarriers (bool); default null
• maxDaysAgo (int); default 30

Get exporters for a commodity

Get a list of exports of a commodity - places where you can buy from - ordered by the lowest price you can buy it for. Returns best 100 matching results.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/commodity/name/{commodityName}/exports

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/commodity/name/gold/exports

Supported query parameters

• minVolume (int); default 1
• maxPrice (int); default null
• fleetCarriers (bool); default null
• maxDaysAgo (int); default 30

System information

Get information for a system

Get information about a system.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/{systemName}

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol

Get a list of nearby systems

Returns a list of up to 1000 nearby systems, ordered by distance.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/{systemName}/nearby

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearby

Supported query parameters

• maxDistance (int); default 100, max 500

Get nearest station service

Find the nearest station providing a specific type of service and information about the station and system they are in.

The location of 20 nearest matching stations will be returned. Results are returned in order of distance. A minimum landing pad size for the station can be specified.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/{systemName}/nearest/{service}

e.g. You can query for any of these services:

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/interstellar-factors
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/material-trader
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/technology-broker
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/black-market
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/universal-cartographics
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/refuel
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/repair
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/shipyard
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/outfitting
• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/nearest/search-and-rescue

Supported query parameters

• minLandingPadSize (int); default 1 (1 = small, 2 = medium, 3 = large)

Get commodities traded in a system

Returns a list of all known trade orders in a system.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/{systemName}/commodities

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/commodities

Get commodities imported by a system

Returns a list of all known commodities imported by a system - places where you can sell to - ordered by name of the commodity.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/{systemName}/commodities/imports

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/commodities/imports

Supported query parameters

• minVolume (int); default 1
• minPrice (int); default 1
• fleetCarriers (bool); default null
• maxDaysAgo (int); default 30

Get commodities exported by a system

Returns a list of all known commodities exported by a system - places where you can buy from - ordered by name of the commodity.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/{systemName}/commodities/exports

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/commodities/exports

Supported query parameters

• minVolume (int); default 1
• maxPrice (int); default null
• fleetCarriers (bool); default null
• maxDaysAgo (int); default 30

Get trade data for a commodity in a system

Get all buy/sell orders for a commodity in a system.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/{systemName}/commodity/name/{commodityName}

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/commodity/name/gold

Supported query parameters

• maxDaysAgo (int); default 30

Get a list of nearby importers of a commodity

Get a list of nearby places that importing a commodity close to the specified system. Returns the first 1000 results, ordered by the highest price they are willing to pay.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/{systemName}/commodity/name/{commodityName}/nearby/imports

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/commodity/name/gold/nearby/imports

Supported query parameters

• minVolume (int); default 1
• minPrice (int); default 1
• fleetCarriers (bool); default null
• maxDistance (int); default 100, max 500
• maxDaysAgo (int); default 30

Get a list of nearby exporters of a commodity

Get a list of nearby places that importing a commodity close to the specified system. Returns the first 1000 results, ordered by the lowest price you can buy it for.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/{systemName}/commodity/name/{commodityName}/nearby/exports

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/system/name/Sol/commodity/name/gold/nearby/exports

Supported query parameters

• minVolume (int); default 1
• maxPrice (int); default null
• fleetCarriers (bool); default null
• maxDistance (int); default 100, max 500
• maxDaysAgo (int); default 30

Get trade data for a commodity in a specific market

Get information about commodity for a specific market.

This was added to support providing information about rare goods, which are typically only avalible from a single known market

Support for additional queries by market ID may be added in future.

• https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/market/{marketId}/commodity/name/{commodityName}

e.g. https://api.ardent-insight.com/v2/market/128106744/commodity/name/lavianbrandy

Authentication

All of the routes handled by this API are anonymous.

The Authentication Service for Ardent handles calls to all API routes that involve authentication.

Rate Limits

The service does not currently enforce any rate limits.

It is intended to be performant under load but respectful use is appreciated.

For those who want to perform a very high number of queries, the entire stack is open source and can be cloned and run locally.

Full database dumps can be downloaded from https://ardent-insight.com/downloads

Credits

This software would not be possible without work from dozens of enthusiasts and hundreds of open source contributors.

Special thanks to Elite Dangerous Community Developers members, Elite Dangerous Data Network maintainers, Anthor (Elite Dangerous Star Map) and Gareth Harper (Spansh).

Thank you to all those who have created and supported libraries on which this software depends and to Frontier Developments plc for supporting third party tools.

Legal

Copyright Iain Collins, 2024.

This software has been released under the GNU Affero General Public License.

Elite Dangerous is copyright Frontier Developments plc. This software is not endorsed by nor reflects the views or opinions of Frontier Developments and no employee of Frontier Developments was involved in the making of it.