--- title: OGC Quietly Built the API Reuse Register the Rest of Us... description: The OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) has built a working API reuse register called Location Building Blocks that the broader API community has long discussed... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ogc-quietly-built-the-api-reuse-register-the-rest-of-us-keep-talking-about-itqr4auvi twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: OGC Quietly Built the API Reuse Register the Rest of Us Keep Talking About | daily.dev og:description: The OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) has built a working API reuse register called Location Building Blocks that the broader API community has long discussed... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ogc-quietly-built-the-api-reuse-register-the-rest-of-us-keep-talking-about-itqr4auvi og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/itQR4auvI.png og:image:alt: OGC Quietly Built the API Reuse Register the Rest of Us Keep Talking About og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # OGC Quietly Built the API Reuse Register the Rest of Us Keep Talking About **[API Evangelist](https://daily.dev/sources/apievangelist)** · 6 min read · 3 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) has built a working API reuse register called Location Building Blocks that the broader API community has long discussed but never shipped. Each building block is a self-contained folder with a bblock.json metadata file, JSON Schema, JSON-LD semantic context, worked examples, and test cases validated through a CI pipeline. Blocks carry stable dotted identifiers, maturity levels, and dependency graphs, making them discoverable by both humans and machines. The register supports federation, allowing domain-specific registers to compose with others. The JSON-LD semantic uplift is highlighted as especially significant for AI agents, enabling them to reason about API components rather than guessing from field names. The author argues this pattern should be adopted beyond geospatial — for payments, healthcare, government APIs — and sees it as a proven blueprint for machine-readable, agent-native API component registries. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is an OGC building block and what does it contain? An OGC building block is a small, self-contained, testable interface component, ranging from a whole API standard to a single parameter or datatype like a bounding box. Each one is packaged as a folder containing a bblock.json metadata file, a JSON Schema defining its content model, a JSON-LD context giving it semantic meaning, worked examples, and test cases, all validated by a postprocessing pipeline before publication. _daily.dev surfaces standards work like this for teams designing reusable, agent-ready API components._ ### Why does adding JSON-LD context to an API schema matter for AI agents? A JSON Schema alone only tells a machine the shape of data, such as four numbers for a bounding box, while a JSON-LD context adds meaning, identifying that those numbers represent a spatial extent tied to a coordinate reference system. This semantic layer lets an agent reason about and compose components correctly instead of guessing from field names, reducing the chance it silently misinterprets equivalent fields across different APIs. _developers building agent-facing APIs can track semantic tooling trends like this on daily.dev._ ### What does federation mean in the context of OGC's building blocks register? Federation means a local register of building blocks in one domain can be transparently composed with registers from other domains, so a component defined once is discoverable everywhere rather than being reinvented per domain. This makes the OGC pattern a template that other industries, such as payments, healthcare, or government, could replicate and interconnect for their own reusable API components. _daily.dev helps engineers weighing shared component registries follow how federation patterns like this evolve._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Binding Governance Building Blocks Into One Navigable Graph](https://daily.dev/posts/binding-governance-building-blocks-into-one-navigable-graph-q7slksvzx) · API Evangelist · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Building Block Economy](https://daily.dev/posts/the-building-block-economy-0nx17p5py) · Mitchell Hashimoto · 10 upvotes · 0 comments - [Multimedia Building Blocks](https://daily.dev/posts/multimedia-building-blocks-0jfshblu2) · Hugging Face · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Architecture Behind 10,000 API Providers](https://daily.dev/posts/the-architecture-behind-10-000-api-providers-53q1xhtyw) · API Evangelist · 112 upvotes · 3 comments - [Scattered thoughts on social geolocation](https://daily.dev/posts/scattered-thoughts-on-social-geolocation-muenrn3xg) · Terence Eden · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#openapi](https://daily.dev/tags/openapi) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ogc-quietly-built-the-api-reuse-register-the-rest-of-us-keep-talking-about-itqr4auvi) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"OGC Quietly Built the API Reuse Register the Rest of Us Keep Talking About","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ogc-quietly-built-the-api-reuse-register-the-rest-of-us-keep-talking-about-itqr4auvi","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ogc-quietly-built-the-api-reuse-register-the-rest-of-us-keep-talking-about-itqr4auvi"},"datePublished":"2026-07-15T12:35:37.354Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:37:47.420Z","description":"The OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) has built a working API reuse register called Location Building Blocks that the broader API community has long discussed...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/3ff0bf2aa063b37ee7c91f89603afbc1?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/3ff0bf2aa063b37ee7c91f89603afbc1?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"API Evangelist","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"API Evangelist","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/a36244ae67bc4f41a605f780267ecb5f","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/apievangelist"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ogc-quietly-built-the-api-reuse-register-the-rest-of-us-keep-talking-about-itqr4auvi","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"architecture,openapi","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"API Evangelist","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/apievangelist"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"OGC Quietly Built the API Reuse Register the Rest of Us Keep Talking About"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ogc-quietly-built-the-api-reuse-register-the-rest-of-us-keep-talking-about-itqr4auvi#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What is an OGC building block and what does it contain?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"An OGC building block is a small, self-contained, testable interface component, ranging from a whole API standard to a single parameter or datatype like a bounding box. 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