StrainAPI API Terms of Use
These API Terms of Use govern access to and use of the StrainAPI application programming interface, associated endpoints, and data made available through the API.
Build with StrainAPI.
StrainAPI is intended to make structured cannabis cultivar information useful to developers, researchers, websites, applications, and data projects.
- You may build personal, educational, research, and commercial applications using StrainAPI.
- You may cache API responses when reasonably necessary for your application.
- When StrainAPI data is publicly displayed, attribution to StrainAPI is required where reasonably practical.
- You may not copy substantially the entire database and republish, resell, sublicense, or offer it as a competing dataset or API.
- You may not circumvent technical restrictions, request limits, or security protections.
- Cannabis cultivar information can be incomplete, disputed, source-reported, or change over time and should not be treated as medical or legal advice.
This summary is provided for convenience. The complete API Terms below control.
1. Agreement to These Terms
These API Terms of Use (“API Terms”) govern access to and use of the StrainAPI application programming interface, associated endpoints, and data made available through the API (collectively, the “API”).
By accessing or using the API, you agree to these API Terms. If you do not agree, do not access or use the API.
2. Permission to Use the API
Subject to these API Terms, StrainAPI grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable permission to access and use the API to develop, operate, test, research, or support websites, applications, software, research tools, data projects, and other legitimate integrations.
Commercial use is permitted subject to these API Terms.
Unless otherwise stated in the documentation, the public API is provided on a read-only basis.
Access to the API does not transfer ownership of StrainAPI, its infrastructure, database, website, trademarks, documentation, or other intellectual property to you.
3. Permitted Uses
You may use the API for legitimate purposes including:
- Websites and web applications
- Mobile and desktop applications
- Educational and scientific projects
- Research and analytical tools
- Internal business tools
- Data visualization
- Search and discovery tools
- Commercial products and services
- Other applications that meaningfully use StrainAPI data as part of a broader product or service
You are responsible for ensuring that your use of the API and resulting application complies with applicable laws and regulations.
4. Attribution
When StrainAPI data is publicly displayed to users, you must provide attribution to StrainAPI where reasonably practical.
The preferred attribution is:
The attribution should link to the StrainAPI website when the medium reasonably supports hyperlinks.
Attribution does not imply that StrainAPI sponsors, endorses, certifies, or is affiliated with your application, company, research, or service.
You may accurately state that your application uses StrainAPI, but you may not represent yourself as an official StrainAPI product or partner without permission.
5. Caching and Storage
Reasonable caching of API responses is permitted and encouraged when used to improve performance, reliability, or efficient API usage.
You should refresh cached information at reasonable intervals appropriate to your application because StrainAPI records may be corrected, expanded, or otherwise updated.
Caching does not grant permission to systematically reconstruct, archive, or maintain a substantially complete independent copy of the StrainAPI database for redistribution or operation as a substitute for StrainAPI.
Applications should avoid unnecessary repeated requests when recently retrieved information can reasonably be reused.
6. Redistribution, Resale, and Competing Services
You may incorporate StrainAPI data into a website, application, research tool, or commercial product.
However, unless StrainAPI gives you separate written permission, you may not:
- Sell or sublicense access to the StrainAPI API itself
- Sell or redistribute substantially all of the StrainAPI database as a standalone dataset
- Provide a database dump or substantially equivalent bulk copy of StrainAPI data
- Systematically reproduce the database for the primary purpose of creating a substitute for StrainAPI
- Operate a competing API whose primary dataset is substantially copied or reconstructed from StrainAPI
- Remove or deliberately conceal required attribution when publicly displaying StrainAPI data
- Falsely represent StrainAPI data as data independently collected or verified by you
7. Automated Access and Scraping
Developers should use the documented API when programmatic access is available.
You may not use scraping, distributed requests, rotating addresses, multiple systems, or other techniques for the purpose of:
- Bypassing API restrictions
- Circumventing request limits
- Avoiding technical controls
- Reconstructing substantially the entire database contrary to these API Terms
- Interfering with the availability or security of StrainAPI
Ordinary search-engine crawling and legitimate access to publicly available website pages are governed separately by applicable website policies and technical directives.
8. Request Limits and Fair Use
StrainAPI may apply technical request limits, throttling, caching, traffic controls, or other reasonable measures to protect service availability, security, and performance.
You must not attempt to bypass or circumvent these controls.
Applications should:
- Cache responses where appropriate
- Avoid unnecessary duplicate requests
- Use pagination responsibly
- Avoid excessive concurrency
- Respond appropriately to HTTP errors, throttling, or other service signals
Current technical limits or operational policies may be described in the developer documentation.
StrainAPI may adjust request limits as the service evolves, including to respond to abuse, infrastructure requirements, security risks, or unusually high traffic.
9. Prohibited Uses
You may not use the API to:
- Violate applicable law or regulation
- Infringe intellectual-property, privacy, publicity, or other rights of another person or organization
- Introduce malware or malicious code
- Disrupt, overload, damage, probe, or interfere with StrainAPI infrastructure
- Bypass authentication, access restrictions, request limits, or security controls
- Gain unauthorized access to systems or information
- Conceal abusive request patterns
- Misrepresent the source, meaning, confidence, or ownership of API data
- Falsely imply sponsorship, certification, endorsement, or partnership by StrainAPI
- Facilitate activity that materially threatens the security or availability of the service
Good-faith security research requires prior authorization where the activity could probe, test, exploit, or interfere with StrainAPI systems.
10. Cannabis Data and Evidence Limitations
StrainAPI provides cannabis cultivar information for informational, educational, scientific, botanical, research, and development purposes.
Cannabis cultivar information is not always standardized or independently verifiable. Individual records may include information that is breeder-reported, source-reported, laboratory-reported, community-reported, disputed, incomplete, unavailable, or subject to change.
Where StrainAPI exposes evidence or confidence states, developers should preserve the meaning of those states and should not knowingly transform uncertain, disputed, or missing information into a representation of verified fact.
Missing API values may be represented by
null, empty arrays, or other documented
structures. Developers should not assume that missing
information means zero, false, absent, or scientifically
disproven.
StrainAPI does not guarantee that every cultivar name, lineage, breeder attribution, cannabinoid value, terpene profile, effect, cultivation characteristic, or other data point is complete, current, or independently verified.
11. No Medical, Legal, or Professional Advice
The API and its data are not medical advice, diagnosis, treatment recommendations, legal advice, or other professional advice.
Cannabis laws, regulations, product composition, and individual responses can vary significantly by jurisdiction, product, batch, and person.
You are responsible for how your application presents and uses StrainAPI data and for any additional notices or safeguards appropriate to your users and jurisdiction.
12. Third-Party Content and Rights
The API may reference names, trademarks, breeder information, source-reported information, images, or other material associated with third parties.
Access to material through StrainAPI does not grant you ownership of third-party intellectual property or any rights beyond those StrainAPI is legally able to provide.
You are responsible for determining whether additional permission is required for your particular use of third-party trademarks, images, copyrighted material, or other protected content.
Nothing in these API Terms transfers ownership of third-party rights to StrainAPI or to API users.
13. StrainAPI Intellectual Property
StrainAPI and its licensors retain their respective rights in the API, website, documentation, branding, software, database organization, original content, and other protected materials.
Except for the limited permissions expressly provided by these API Terms, no rights are granted by implication, estoppel, or otherwise.
“StrainAPI” and associated branding may not be used in a manner that falsely suggests ownership, endorsement, sponsorship, certification, or official affiliation.
14. API Versioning and Changes
The current documented public API uses a versioned namespace.
StrainAPI may improve, expand, correct, or modify the API and its data over time.
Non-breaking changes may occur without advance notice, including:
- New optional fields
- New endpoints
- Additional records
- Corrections to existing data
- Expanded metadata
- Performance or security improvements
Developers should design integrations to tolerate additional fields and should rely only on documented behavior.
A versioned API does not guarantee that a particular version will operate indefinitely.
15. Availability and Service Levels
The free API is provided without a guaranteed service-level agreement unless StrainAPI expressly agrees otherwise in writing.
StrainAPI does not guarantee uninterrupted, error-free, or permanently available access.
The API may be temporarily unavailable because of maintenance, infrastructure failure, security events, abuse prevention, upgrades, third-party services, network conditions, or circumstances outside StrainAPI’s control.
Developers should design applications to handle temporary API failures gracefully.
16. Suspension and Termination
StrainAPI may restrict, throttle, suspend, or terminate API access when reasonably necessary to:
- Address a violation of these API Terms
- Protect the API, website, infrastructure, or users
- Investigate suspected abuse or security threats
- Respond to legal requirements
- Prevent excessive or harmful traffic
- Maintain service stability
Where circumstances reasonably permit, StrainAPI may provide an opportunity to correct a violation before permanent restriction.
Immediate action may be taken where necessary for security, legal compliance, abuse prevention, or service protection.
Your permission to use the API under these API Terms ends if you materially violate these API Terms and the violation is not cured where cure is reasonably available.
Sections that by their nature should continue after termination—including restrictions on unauthorized redistribution, intellectual-property provisions, disclaimers, and limitations of liability—survive termination.
17. Privacy and Your Users
If your application collects personal information from its users, you are responsible for providing appropriate privacy disclosures and complying with applicable privacy and data-protection laws.
Your use of StrainAPI does not make StrainAPI responsible for the personal information collected independently by your application.
Do not send sensitive personal information to StrainAPI through parameters or requests unless StrainAPI expressly provides functionality requiring that information.
18. Disclaimer of Warranties
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE API AND DATA ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY.
STRAINAPI DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE API OR DATA WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, COMPLETE, ACCURATE, CURRENT, SECURE, OR SUITABLE FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
STRAINAPI DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
Some jurisdictions do not permit certain warranty exclusions, so portions of this section may not apply to you.
19. Limitation of Liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, STRAINAPI AND ITS OPERATORS, CONTRIBUTORS, LICENSORS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, AND AFFILIATES WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, OR SERVICE AVAILABILITY ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE API OR DATA.
Any additional limitation or monetary cap applicable to StrainAPI should be interpreted according to applicable law and any separate written agreement between you and StrainAPI.
Nothing in these API Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.
20. Responsibility for Your Application
You are responsible for your application, integration, service, users, representations, security practices, and compliance with applicable law.
You are also responsible for claims resulting from content, functionality, representations, or activities that you add independently of StrainAPI.
If your application materially changes, interprets, combines, or derives conclusions from StrainAPI data, you should avoid presenting those conclusions as statements made or verified by StrainAPI unless they actually originate from StrainAPI.
21. Changes to These API Terms
StrainAPI may update these API Terms as the service, technology, legal requirements, or API policies evolve.
Material changes will be reflected by updating the “Last updated” date and, where reasonably practical, providing additional notice through the website or developer documentation.
Your continued use of the API after updated API Terms become effective constitutes acceptance of the updated terms to the extent permitted by applicable law.
Changes to these API Terms do not override the API-versioning principles described above regarding breaking technical changes.
22. General Terms
If any provision of these API Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in effect to the extent permitted by law.
A failure by StrainAPI to enforce a provision on one occasion does not waive the right to enforce that provision later.
These API Terms do not create a partnership, joint venture, employment relationship, agency relationship, franchise, or endorsement between you and StrainAPI.
Any governing-law, jurisdiction, dispute-resolution, or entity-specific provisions published by StrainAPI or contained in an applicable general Terms of Use will apply where legally effective.
23. Contact
Questions about API use, attribution, commercial integrations, higher-volume access, redistribution permissions, or these API Terms may be submitted through the official contact method published on StrainAPI.com.
If your intended use falls outside these API Terms—particularly bulk redistribution, database licensing, white-label data access, or operation of another data service—contact StrainAPI before proceeding.