Feature request - Optional API keys

Hi all

I’m writing from OpenCorporates who provide a reconciliation service (among other API services). See https://reconciliation-api.github.io/testbench/.

We provide all our APIs under either an entirely open basis or via an API key. We issue API keys free of charge for public benefit users, and on a paid basis for corporate users. We have 3 types of users: users who use our services without an API key, public benefit users (e.g. journalists) who use our services with a free API key and those who use our services with a paid API key.


OpenRefine does not currently support API keys, so OpenRefine users are only able to use our API through the public endpoint. To improve performance, make our service more maintainable and generally manage it better, we are going to be retiring some of the underlying functionality in our main app that supports use without API key. But we want to make sure we can still provide this service to public benefit users, so we need to be able to support (optional) API keys.

What is the view in the community about OpenRefine providing support for (optional) API keys?

Alan Buxton
CTO

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