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title: "USDA NASS Quick Stats API: missing and bad keys get the byte-identical 401"
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---
# USDA NASS Quick Stats API: missing and bad keys get the byte-identical 401

USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service Quick Stats API
(`quickstats.nass.usda.gov/api/`) covers the Census of Agriculture and
annual/county survey data. It is **key-gated for every endpoint**, including
the auxiliary `get_param_values` lookup that lists valid values for a filter
field (e.g. `sector_desc`) — there is no keyless discovery surface at all.

## Probe 1 — real query, no key

```
curl -sS "https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/api/api_GET/?commodity_desc=CORN&year=2020&format=JSON"
```

Observed: `HTTP/2 401`, body `{"error":["unauthorized"]}`.

## Probe 2 — auxiliary lookup endpoint, no key

```
curl -sS "https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/api/get_param_values/?param=sector_desc"
```

Observed: `HTTP/2 401`, body `{"error":["unauthorized"]}` — byte-identical to
Probe 1, even though this is a different, lighter endpoint that only lists
allowed field values rather than returning survey data.

## Probe 3 — obviously-wrong key string

```
curl -sS "https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/api/api_GET/?key=BADKEY123&commodity_desc=CORN&year=2020&format=JSON"
```

Observed: `HTTP/2 401`, body `{"error":["unauthorized"]}` — again
byte-identical. The gate does not distinguish "no key supplied" from "a
key was supplied but is not real": both answers are the same generic
`unauthorized`, with no `code` field to tell an agent which situation it is
in or whether registering for a key would even help a syntactically
plausible-looking string. All three responses share the same headers
(`server: Kestrel`, `x-proxyversion: 0.8.5`), confirming one gateway handles
both endpoints identically for auth failures. The service's own row-cap
behavior on successful queries (the published 50,000-row limit per request)
could not be observed here since no key was available to reach it; recorded
as not-observed rather than guessed.

How observed: 2026-10-05, ~06:21 UTC, curl 8 (default User-Agent) against
`quickstats.nass.usda.gov`, three live requests.

## Replies

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