Status Page
Documentation

Access Options to Skills

Lightcast APIs provide programmatic access to structured skills data through our Classification API.

We offer access to our industry-standard Skills Taxonomy so you can explore, test use cases, and begin building with standardized skills data.

Access Options

Lightcast provides two ways to access Skills.

Public-Good Access (Free)

Free access is available for nonprofit organizations and public-good initiatives, subject to approval.

This option is designed to support ecosystem adoption and enable organizations working toward workforce, education, and community impact goals.

Apply here: https://lightcast.io/taxonomies/skills-taxonomy/access

Commercial Access

A commercial license is required for for-profit or production use cases.

You can request access using the same application form. Your request will be routed to a Lightcast representative who will work with you to understand your use case. The team can also provide time-bound, prorated test access to help you evaluate the APIs before moving to a full license.

Apply here: https://lightcast.io/taxonomies/skills-taxonomy/access

What You Can Do with API Access

All functionality is available through the Lightcast Classification API, using a limited-access scope designed for exploration.

For more information, see the Classification API documentation.

Explore the Skills Taxonomy

  • Query 33,000+ standardized skills.
  • Access structured metadata including:
    • Unique skill IDs
    • Skill names and descriptions
    • Skills types, categories, and hierarchy
  • Apply a consistent skills language across your systems.

Extract Skills from Text (Limited in Free Tier)

  • Submit text such as:
    • Job descriptions
    • Social profiles
    • Course content
  • Receive standardized skill data mapped to the taxonomy.
  • Use up to 50 skill extraction requests per month with public-good (free) access.
  • Validate use cases like:
    • Profile enrichment
    • Job enrichment
    • Skill extraction

Build and Test Applications

  • Enrich and standardize skill data using taxonomy metadata.
  • Use skill descriptions, categories, and hierarchy.
  • Improve consistency, searchability, and structure across your data.

Explore Taxonomy Structure & Updates

  • Review how skills are organized.
  • Track updates to the taxonomy over time.
  • Understand how standardized data supports analytics and reporting.

Usage Limits (Public-Good Access)

Public-good access is designed for exploration and early-stage development.

  • Includes up to 50 skill extraction API calls per month.
  • Uses the limited-access API scope (lightcast_open_free).
  • Suitable for testing and small-scale use cases.
  • Is not intended for production-scale workloads

What’s Included

  • Access to the Lightcast Skills Taxonomy via the Classification API
  • Standardized skills with machine-readable IDs
    • Skill hierarchy (Skill → Subcategory → Category)
  • Skill metadata (descriptions, types, and categories)
  • Limited skill extraction functionality

What’s Not Included

Public-good (free) access focuses on foundational skills functionality. It does not include:

  • High-volume or production-scale API usage
  • Access to other taxonomies (e.g., job titles, occupations)
  • Cross-dataset relationships or advanced insights
  • Full API capabilities available in commercial offerings

How to Get Started

  1. Apply for access using the form below.
  2. Your request will be reviewed based on your organization and use case.
  3. If approved, you’ll receive API credentials (Client ID and Client Secret).
  4. Begin making API calls using the documentation and examples.

Apply for Access: https://lightcast.io/taxonomies/skills-taxonomy/access

Ways to Explore our APIs

MethodDescription
Postman CollectionInspect sample API calls and understand endpoint usage.
Interactive API Reference Review endpoints, parameters, and interactive examples.

When to Use Public-Good Access

Public-good access is ideal if you are:

  • A nonprofit or public-sector organization
  • Building workforce, education, or community-focused solutions
  • Exploring skills-based use cases before scaling
  • Testing and validating early-stage applications

Need More?

If your use case requires higher API limits, production-scale deployment, access to additional datasets, or advanced capabilities, contact us to learn more about commercial access options.

Additional Resources

Updated 1 day ago

Did this page help you?