usaspending-api

USAspending API is a server application that provides U.S. federal spending data through a RESTful API. It is the backend used by USAspending.gov to make federal spending information publicly available as part of the DATA Act. The project is built with Django and Python, uses PostgreSQL for relational storage and OpenSearch for search-backed endpoints, and supports Docker Compose-based local development. The repository includes setup instructions for creating a development environment with Docker, configuring environment variables, running database migrations, loading reference data, and generating OpenSearch indexes for transactions, awards, recipients, and subawards. It also documents observability tooling using Grafana, Tempo, and OpenTelemetry, as well as test workflows including optional Broker integration tests. This is primarily useful for developers who want to run the API locally, contribute to the project, or understand how federal spending data is served. The README focuses on operational setup rather than describing individual API endpoints, though it points to local and production endpoint documentation.