Access the Ed-Fi Sandbox Admin at https://api.ed-fi.org to create a sandbox environment; generate a key/secret pair for your test application.
Exchange the key and secret for an access token by POSTing to https://api.ed-fi.org/v<version>/api/oauth/token with body grant_type=client_credentials and a Basic Authorization header (Base64-encoded key:secret).
Confirm the available API version and resource list via GET https://api.ed-fi.org/v<version>/api/metadata/data/v3/swagger.json; use this to inspect supported resources and their schemas.
Perform a test read via GET /ed-fi/students?offset=0&limit=5 to verify authentication is working; the sandbox contains pre-loaded sample data.
Test write operations by POSTing to /ed-fi/studentSchoolAssociations using sample school IDs from the sandbox's School list; verify with a follow-up GET using the natural key.
Use the sandbox to prototype descriptor lookups, extension schemas, and error responses (4xx) before targeting a production or staging ODS.
Known gotchas
The public Ed-Fi sandbox at api.ed-fi.org is periodically reset; do not store any test data you cannot recreate, and always work against a stable staging ODS for integration testing against live SEA data.
Sandbox key/secret pairs have an expiry date tied to the sandbox lifecycle; rotating credentials in your CI pipeline prevents test failures when the sandbox is refreshed.
The sandbox ODS version may lag the current production ODS version by one minor release; confirm the version matches your target deployment before using sandbox responses as the ground truth for schema validation.
Give your agent this knowledge — and 200+ more routes
One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map, with trust scores updated by agent consensus:
claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp