python-usajobsapi

python-usajobsapi is a typed Python wrapper for the USAJOBS REST API. The project provides a clean interface for discovering and querying job postings using Python.

Status

This project is under active development and its API may change. Changes to the USAJOBS REST API documentation are monitored and incorporated on a best-effort basis. Feedback and ideas are appreciated.

Overview

The USAJOBS REST API exposes a large catalog of job opportunity announcements (JOAs) with a complex query surface. This project focuses on providing:

• Declarative endpoint definitions.
• Strongly typed request/query parameters and response models.
• Streaming helpers for paginating through large result sets.
• Normalization of data formats (e.g., date handling, booleans, payload serialization).

Supported Endpoints

This package primarily aims to support searching and retrieval of active and past job listings. Coverage of all documented endpoints will continue to be expanded.

Currently, the following endpoints are supported:

• Job Search API (/api/Search)
• Historic JOA API (/api/HistoricJoa)
• Planned in #6 - Announcement Text API (/api/HistoricJoa/AnnouncementText)

Installation

From PyPI

pip install python-usajobsapi

or, with astral-uv:

uv add python-usajobsapi

From source

git clone https://github.com/your-username/python-usajobsapi.git
cd python-usajobsapi
pip install .

Quickstart

1. Request USAJOBS API credentials (Job Search API only).
2. Instatiate the client (USAJobsClient) with your User-Agent (email) and API key.
3. Perform a search:

from usajobsapi import USAJobsClient

client = USAJobsClient(auth_user="name@example.com", auth_key="YOUR_API_KEY")
response = client.search_jobs(keyword="data scientist", location_names=["Atlanta", "Georgia"])

for job in response.jobs():
    print(job.position_title)

Pagination

Handling pagination

Use streaming helpers to to iterate through multiple pages or individual result items without needing to worry about pagination:

for job in client.search_jobs_items(keyword="cybersecurity", results_per_page=100):
    if "Remote" in (job.position_location_display or ""):
        print(job.position_title, job.organization_name)

Command Line Interface

You can call the package as an executable using the usajobsapi command. Run usajobsapi --help to see the exposed arguments.

The first argument maps to a specific endpoint:

Action	USAJOBS REST API Endpoint
announcementtext	Announcement Text /api/historicjoa/announcementtext
search	Job Search /api/search
historicjoa	Historic JOA `/api/historicjoa

Query parameters are supplied with -d/--data as a JSON object:

usajobsapi search \
  --user-agent "you@example.com" \
  --auth-key "$USAJOBS_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"keyword": "data scientist", "results_per_page": 5}'

Developer Guide

Set up a development environment with uv:

uv sync --all-extras --all-groups
uv run pytest tests
uv run ruff check
uv run ruff format

Key Development Principles

• Keep Pydantic models exhaustive and prefer descriptive field metadata so that auto-generated docs remain informative.
• Maintain 100% passing tests, at least 80% test coverage, formatting, and linting before opening a pull request.
• Update docstrings alongside code changes to keep the generated reference accurate.

Document Generation

Documentation is generated using MkDocs. The technical reference surfaces the reStructuredText style docstrings from the package's source code.

uv sync --group docs

# Run the development server
uv run mkdocs serve -f mkdocs/mkdocs.yaml
# Build the static site
uv run mkdocs build -f mkdocs/mkdocs.yaml

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! To get started:

1. Fork the repository and create a new branch.
2. Install development dependencies (see the developer guide).
3. Add or update tests together with your change.
4. Run the full test, linting, and formatting suite locally.
5. Submit a pull request describing your changes and referencing any relevant issues.

For major changes, open an issue first to discuss your proposal.

Design

The software design architecture prioritizes composability and strong typing, ensuring that it is straightforward to add/update endpoints and generate documentation from docstrings.

• Client session management: USAJobsClient wraps a configurable requests.Session to reuse connections and centralize authentication headers.
• Declarative endpoints: Each USAJOBS endpoint is expressed as a Pydantic model with nested Params and Response classes, providing validation, serialization helpers, and rich metadata for documentation.
• Pagination helpers: Iterators (search_jobs_pages and search_jobs_items) encapsulate pagination logic and expose idiomatic Python iterators so users focus on data consumption, not page math.
• Shared utilities: Shared utilities handle API-specific normalization (e.g., date parsing, alias mapping) so endpoint models stay declarative and thin.

License

Distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE for details.

Contact

Questions or issues? Please open an issue on the repository's issue tracker.