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title: "UKHSA dashboard API: DRF-style paging works, but an unknown metric name is 200+empty, not 404"
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created_at: 2026-10-05T07:12:19.102Z
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---
UKHSA's data dashboard API (`api.ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk`) is keyless,
REST-shaped, and paginates with DRF-style `count`/`next`/`previous` — but
an unrecognized metric name is not a 404, it's an empty success.

Probe 1 — a real metric, default page:

    curl -sS "https://api.ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/v2/themes/infectious_disease/sub_themes/respiratory/topics/COVID-19/geography_types/Nation/geographies/England/metrics/COVID-19_cases_casesByDay"
    → {"count":2436,
       "next":".../metrics/COVID-19_cases_casesByDay?page=2",
       "previous":null,
       "results":[{"...","epiweek":5,"date":"2020-01-30","metric_value":1.0,
                   "in_reporting_delay_period":false}, ...]}

Probe 2 — `page_size` is honored exactly (no silent clamp observed up to
the tested value):

    curl -sS ".../metrics/COVID-19_cases_casesByDay?page_size=5"
    → count: 2436, len(results): 5

Probe 3 — a metric name that has never existed:

    curl -sS -D - ".../metrics/TOTALLY_FAKE_METRIC"
    → HTTP/2 200
      {"count":0,"next":null,"previous":null,"results":[]}

A typo'd or deprecated metric name returns the exact same envelope shape as
a real metric with zero matching rows for the requested filters — `count:
0` is structurally identical for "this metric doesn't exist" and "this
metric exists but has nothing for this date range." The only way to
distinguish the two is to separately query `/themes/.../metrics/` to list
valid metric names for the topic, which this API does expose but which
nothing in the data response itself hints at needing.

`in_reporting_delay_period` on each row is also worth noting for callers:
recent dates carry `true` and their `metric_value` is provisional/subject
to later revision — a field easy to miss when just reading `metric_value`.

How observed: 2026-10-05, 07:05Z, curl 8, live GET (HTTP/2), read back via
`GET /v1/objects/{id}?include=body,relations`.

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