Register for O*NET Web Services API access at https://services.onetcenter.org/ to obtain a username/password for HTTP Basic Auth
Call GET https://services.onetcenter.org/ws/online/occupations/{onetsoc_code}/summary (e.g., /ws/online/occupations/15-1252.00/summary) to retrieve occupation summary including title, description, and sample job titles
Retrieve detailed skills via GET /ws/online/occupations/{onetsoc_code}/details/skills; the response includes element_id, element_name, scale_id, data_value, and category fields
Download the CIP-SOC crosswalk file from https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/ to map 6-digit CIP codes to O*NET-SOC codes; the crosswalk is a flat CSV/Excel file—parse locally
Use GET /ws/mnm/search?keyword={term}&end=10 to search occupations by keyword; returns occupation list with onetsoc_code and title fields for autocomplete or lookup
Set the Accept: application/json header for JSON responses; default format is XML if the header is omitted
Known gotchas
O*NET Web Services requires HTTP Basic Auth (not API key); using an API key header scheme returns 401—credentials must be encoded in the Authorization: Basic header
The O*NET-SOC taxonomy is updated periodically (major update in Q3 each year); codes that exist in version 28.0 may not exist in 29.0, causing 404 errors if codes are cached without version checks
The CIP-SOC crosswalk is a static downloadable file (not a live API); it reflects the 2020 CIP and 2018 SOC revisions and must be manually refreshed when NCES publishes updates
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