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← Build things with code · Mission 5 of 18

Build a live space-station tracker (and more) from free APIs

Learn to read the famous public-apis list, then build one HTML file that shows the space station moving on a live map, London weather, the next UK bank holidays and a joke. No keys, no sign-ups, nothing to install.

30 minBeginnerTools: FreeStep 1 free
Tested 9 Oct 2026 · public-apis list as of 9 Oct 2026, Leaflet 1.9.4, Edge 154, Windows 11
A quick way to read the public-apis list and spot the APIs a beginner can use straight away
A single HTML file with the space station on a live map, London weather, the next UK bank holidays and a random joke
fetch() and JSON explained in plain English, with the code to copy
  • The DevTools skills to watch every request, and a page that keeps working when one API goes down
Before you start
  • A browser: Edge, Chrome or Firefox
  • Notepad or any code editor, to look at and change the file
  • An internet connection (the data is live)
  • No account, no API keys and nothing to install
01/06Find the easy APIs in the list0 done
STEP 01 of 06~5 min

Find the easy APIs in the list

Three columns tell you, before you write any code, whether an API will work from a simple web page.

  1. An API is a web address that answers with data instead of a web page. Your code asks a question, and the API sends back the answer.

  2. public-apis ↗ is a list of free APIs on GitHub, sorted into categories like Weather, Animals and Science & Math: over 2,000 APIs in about 50 categories.

  3. The top of the README is an advert for a paid API bundle that needs a sign-up. Scroll past it to the Index, pick a category, and you'll see a table like this:

    The Weather section of the public-apis README on GitHub, with columns API, Description, Auth, HTTPS and CORS
    The Weather section. Open-Meteo, the one this dashboard uses, is a few rows further down: No, Yes, Yes.
    • Auth: do you need to sign up? No means no key and no account. apiKey means you register and get a secret key. OAuth means people log in with an account. A few say User-Agent, which means you have to name your app in every request.
    • HTTPS: does it work over a secure https:// address? If it says No, a page on a normal (https) website can't use it, because the browser blocks it.
    • CORS: will it answer code running inside a web page? Yes means your HTML file can use it directly. No means it only works from a server or a script. Unknown means nobody has checked.

  4. For your first projects, look for rows that say No, Yes, Yes: no key to keep secret, works on secure pages, and works straight from a web page. Around 450 APIs match all three. About half the CORS entries say Unknown, so those are worth a 10-second test too. Step 2 shows you how.

    TipThe page is long. Press Ctrl + F and search for a word like weather, holiday or space to jump straight to useful rows.
✓
CheckpointYou've found Open-Meteo in the Weather section and can say what its three columns mean.
If it breaksAn API from the list doesn't work at all
An API from the list doesn't work at all
Volunteers keep the list up to date, and some entries go stale: an API shuts down, starts failing, or quietly starts asking for a key. Test it in the address bar (step 2), and if it errors, skip it and pick another.
Still stuck? Ask the community
Next mission · Build things with codeScript a terminal demo once, render it as a GIF or a Reel
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