Sources and licences
Which public sources we read, and which we refuse
A source feeds a report only if two things hold: its licence is usable, and a connector exists. A refused source is one we refuse, not one we lack.
- Read freelyFree, sanctioned or an official API.
- ConditionalAllowed but paid, rate-limited or key-gated: opened by a paid key.
- RefusedTerms that forbid it. No connector is ever wired.
Coverage: worldwide / country / neighbourhood
The catalogue holds 41 sources: 32 read freely, 6 under condition, 3 refused.
Demand: community signal
38 sources
| Source | Licence | Cost | State | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Android Enthusiasts (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Ask Different (Apple) (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Bicycles (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Bluesky (AT Protocol public search)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Key required free (an app password for writes) | Not wired | Open API; read only public posts. Used for prospecting replies, never harvested as a demand signal until a connector and a relevance study exist (decision 2026-09-14). |
| Freelancing (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Gardening & Landscaping (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| GitHub IssuesCoverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Feature requests = purest unmet-need signal. |
| Hacker News (Algolia)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Founder/dev pain, launches, Ask HN threads. |
| Home Improvement (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Homebrewing (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Law (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Music: Practice & Theory (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Package downloads (npm + PyPI)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Numbers only — not free-text signal. npm last-month downloads (api.npmjs.org; Public Registry ToS grant does not literally name this host — G1 R1) + PyPI via pypistats (cache daily). Recorded as a volume reading. Routed only — not a default source. |
| Parenting (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Personal Finance & Money (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Pets (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Photography (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Physical Fitness (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Project Management (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Seasoned Advice (cooking) (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Software Quality Assurance & Testing (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Software Recommendations (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Stack Overflow (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Technical pain, unmet needs, 'is there a tool' questions. |
| The Great Outdoors (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| The Workplace (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Travel (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| User Experience (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Video Production (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Webmasters (Stack Exchange)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Community-site variant of the stackexchange connector; routed by idea class and by the seed's own subject. Same API, key, quota and licence as Stack Overflow — the cost of an entry is one dict line. |
| Wikimedia PageviewsCoverage: country | Read freely | Free free (no key; UA required) | Not wired | Free, keyless and language-partitioned (a FR/ES parity lever) — but it measures encyclopedic ATTENTION, not commercial intent, so it is not read: counting it would have made a read look better supported than it is. If it is ever wired, it is shown as a topic-attention reading, never as a measure of buying intent. |
| DataForSEO (search intent / Trends)Coverage: city | Conditional | Paid PAYG | Read today | Search-intent + keyword volume; floors at city (no sub-city volume). |
| Discourse public JSON (per-forum allow-list)Coverage: worldwide | Conditional | Key required free (per-forum rate limits; API key optional/per-forum) | Not wired | G1 2026-08-06: software surface is sanctioned JSON; each forum's ToS is the gate. G5 verified reachability of several public /search.json endpoints but found no host whose terms affirmatively permit automated commercial retrieval of post text — the allow-list is therefore empty. Never unsolicited multi-forum crawl. Wire only allow-listed instances, each as its own row marked built. |
| Forum threads via Google (DataForSEO SERP)Coverage: country | Conditional | Paid PAYG | Not wired | The discussion threads Google itself lists for a query, read through the same paid search-data provider as the search-volume probe: titles, hosts and post counts of Reddit, Nextdoor, Quora and trade-forum threads, never the posts' text. Not wired yet: the connector is a named lot; until it lands, a local-service idea reads only the search-volume probe and the Stack Exchange room of its trade, and refuses honestly when those are silent. |
| X (official API, read-only)Coverage: worldwide | Conditional | Paid paid per read | Not wired | Official pay-per-use API: reads public idea posts for prospecting replies only, under a monthly cap; never harvested as a demand signal, and replies are posted by a person (the API refuses unsolicited replies since 2026-02-23). |
| YouTube Data API v3Coverage: worldwide | Conditional | Key required free (10k quota units/day; search.list costs 100 each) | Not wired | Built as G3 (PR #21) and refused on 2026-08-06 — not on the licence, which is workable, but on two clauses our pipeline cannot satisfy today. API ToS III.E.4.h: a developer must not 'use the YouTube API Services to create derived scores or metrics' — the demand score IS one, and the scoring step has no per-source exclusion path, so a YouTube signal's engagement reaches the score through the engagement term and its text through the pain blend. III.E.4.d requires stored API data to be refreshed or deleted within 30 days — incompatible with a buyer's permanent report and with frozen replay corpora holding full signal text in git. Quota makes it scarce too (one 100-unit search.list per keyword ⇒ ~100 keywords/day for a whole deployment), but scarcity is not why it is refused. Wire only behind a context-only path that keeps a source out of every scored quantity, plus a retention mechanism. Until then the content-creator idea class has no community source, and the report says so rather than implying one. |
| Refused | — | Refused | ToS-hostile. | |
| Reddit (direct API) | Refused | — | Refused | The dependency that killed GummySearch. Only via a reseller if economics close. |
| X / Twitter | Refused | — | Refused | ToS-hostile. |
Brand and domain
3 sources
| Source | Licence | Cost | State | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Radar (domain popularity/collision)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Key required free (token) | Read today | Domain rank = namespace-collision signal; Radar API needs a Cloudflare token. |
| RDAP (domain availability)Coverage: worldwide | Read freely | Free | Read today | Availability (404=free, 200=taken); never claims a domain is free. |
| Registrar (Porkbun / Cloudflare / Name.com)Coverage: worldwide | Conditional | Paid registration at cost | Read today | First-year price + availability. Porkbun API is POST-only + needs key & secret. |