Government Trades API Reference

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Best Practices

For optimal performance, we have a few recommendations.

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Limit query, improve performance

Limiting the scope of the query will directly improve the latency of the API. This can be accomplished by using parameters such as symbols, or (preferably) by using updated for deltas.

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Using deltas

A common pattern is to use a delta to query for the latest change in a dataset. By reducing the amount of data available in the query, it will produce results with the least amount of latency and limited data an application will have to traverse.

In our case, we recommend tracking and querying by the latest updated timestamp.

One caveat to allow for some latency and second-only timestamps: when querying, set updated to a value 5 seconds earlier than you actually want. A query may look like:

/government_trades?updated=LAGGED_TIMESTAMP Where LAGGED_TIMESTAMP is set to be five seconds less than the maximum value of the updated field in rows already pulled from our API.

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