Obtain a free FRED API key at fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/api_key.html
Browse top-level categories: GET https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/category/children?category_id=0&api_key={key}&file_type=json — category_id 0 is the root
Drill down into a subcategory of interest (e.g., category_id=32992 for Money, Banking, & Finance): GET .../fred/category/children?category_id=32992&api_key={key}&file_type=json
List releases associated with a category: GET https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/category/releases?category_id={id}&api_key={key}&file_type=json — each release has a name, link, and release schedule
Get all series in a release: GET https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/release/series?release_id={id}&api_key={key}&file_type=json&limit=1000 — note the limit param (default 1000 max per page)
Check upcoming release dates: GET https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/releases/dates?api_key={key}&file_type=json&include_release_dates_with_no_data=false to plan data refresh schedules around publish cadences
Known gotchas
The FRED category tree is curated by Federal Reserve staff and does not follow a strict hierarchical taxonomy — a series can appear under multiple categories, so category-based enumeration may produce duplicates that must be deduplicated by series_id
The /fred/release/series endpoint has a maximum limit of 1000 series per page; large releases (like the BLS Employment Situation) contain more than 1000 series and require pagination using offset
Release dates returned by the API are in Eastern Time but are not labeled as such in the response; apply the America/New_York timezone when scheduling refresh jobs to avoid pulling data one hour before it is actually published
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