generated: '2026-07-20'
method: derived
source:
  - openapi/blockchalk-chalks-openapi.yml
  - authentication/blockchalk-authentication.yml
  - lifecycle/blockchalk-lifecycle.yml
  - http://web.archive.org/web/20090810213933/http://blockchalk.com/developers
name: BlockChalk API conventions
status: retired
summary: >-
  BlockChalk's public API predates most of the cross-cutting conventions this artifact
  normally records. It was a read-only, anonymous, unpaginated geo-query returning feed
  formats. Recording the absences honestly is the point: almost every runtime semantic below
  is "not published".
auth:
  style: none
  detail: Anonymous public reads. See authentication/blockchalk-authentication.yml.
idempotency:
  supported: false
  header: null
  detail: Read-only GET surface; no idempotency key was ever published.
pagination:
  supported: false
  style: none
  params: []
  response_fields: []
  detail: >-
    Responses are a single unbounded feed of nearby chalks with no cursor, page, offset or
    limit parameter and no next-link relation.
filtering:
  supported: true
  detail: >-
    The only filter is geographic. Unversioned interfaces take long and lat query parameters;
    the v0.6 interface takes a single comma-joined "latitude,longitude" path segment.
field_expansion:
  supported: false
sparse_fields:
  supported: false
metadata:
  supported: false
request_id:
  supported: false
  detail: No request-id or correlation header was documented or observed in captured responses.
versioning:
  style: path
  detail: >-
    The 2009 interfaces were unversioned (/api/xml/chalk); a later /api/v0.6/ path prefix
    appeared by 2010. See lifecycle/blockchalk-lifecycle.yml.
content_negotiation:
  style: path
  detail: >-
    Format is selected by URL path rather than by an Accept header: /api/xml/chalk,
    /api/json/chalk and /rss/chalk are three distinct paths for the same query.
error_envelope:
  format: none
  detail: >-
    No error contract was published and no non-2xx response was captured, so there is no
    error envelope to describe. See errors/ (absent by design).
rate_limiting:
  published: false
  headers: []
  detail: No rate limit, quota or throttling signal was documented.
transport:
  scheme: http
  tls: false
  detail: >-
    Every documented endpoint and every captured request used plain http://. No HTTPS
    endpoint was published.
caching:
  detail: >-
    Feed formats imply polling as the consumption model, but no explicit cache-control,
    ETag or conditional-request guidance was published.