@urbankitstudio/cli

@urbankitstudio/cli

uks is the UrbanKit Studio command line. It lists plans, shows your key's quota and usage, resolves an address to its county's parcel endpoint, and files a request for a county the atlas lacks. County search runs offline against the bundled County Parcel REST API Atlas data. Every command prints one JSON document with --json and exits with a code a script can branch on.

Node.js 22 or newer. The only runtime dependency is @urbankitstudio/atlas, which supplies the offline data.

Install

npx @urbankitstudio/cli --help      # run once without installing
npm install -g @urbankitstudio/cli  # or install the uks command
uks --help

From the monorepo, for development:

npm --prefix packages/cli ci
npm --prefix packages/cli exec -- tsup --config packages/cli/tsup.config.ts
node packages/cli/dist/uks.js --help

Commands

Command	Network	Key	What it does
uks plans	yes	no	Plans: price, quota, window, owner data
uks whoami	yes	yes	Your tier, key prefix and label, quota, subscription
uks usage [--from D] [--to D]	yes	yes	Calls and units in total, by endpoint, by day
uks states	no	no	States the atlas covers, with county and endpoint counts
uks find <query> [--limit N]	no	no	Counties by name, name plus state, or FIPS
uks county <state> <county>	no	no	One county's endpoint record (also uks county <FIPS>)
uks lookup "<address>" [--op ID]	yes	optional	Address to county and parcel endpoint
uks request-county ...	yes	no	Ask for a county the atlas lacks (free)
uks login --key uk_live_...	no	no	Save a key
uks logout	no	no	Remove the saved key

Examples

uks plans
uks whoami --json
uks usage --from 2026-10-01 --to 2026-10-06
uks states
uks find "Kane IL"
uks county illinois kane-county
uks lookup "100 S 3rd St, Geneva, IL"
uks request-county --fips 06003 --email [e-mail]
uks login --key uk_live_xxxxxxxx
uks logout
uks --version

Notes per command

• find matches the county name exactly, then by prefix, then by substring, then by a near spelling. A trailing state name or two-letter code narrows it ("Kane IL", "Kane County, Illinois"). A 5-digit query is a FIPS lookup. A query that matches no county but is a state name lists that state's counties. Any miss is a normal answer: found: false, exit 0, and a request hint. A name miss without a state gives a request body with a missing list and placeholders in the command.
• county takes the state as a slug, a name or a two-letter code, and the county as a slug (kane-county) or a name (Kane). It prints each endpoint's service URL and layer, the owner-name column or the reason there is none, the scope predicate (scope_where) when the layer serves several counties, whether the layer takes attribute search or only spatial queries, and a link into the UrbanKit parcel lookup tool. The endpoint status is the stamp from when the atlas package was published; live_status_url gives the current answer. A county that is not in the atlas is a normal answer: found: false, exit 0, and the request-county command that asks for it. Each endpoint also says whether the layer pages: pagination is "unsupported" on a layer that refuses resultRecordCount and resultOffset (the Mississippi statewide layers), with its per-request cap in max_record_count. Query such a layer with one request and no paging parameters; it returns at most that many rows and sets exceededTransferLimit when more match, so narrow the where clause or the geometry instead of asking for a second page. search_note spells this out, and the human output adds a Pagination row.
• lookup works without a key at the anonymous per-IP limit. With a key, the key's quota applies and each call counts one unit, except a call for a county we do not serve (one the atlas lacks, or one with no public parcel endpoint) and a call that fails on our side (a 5xx answer), whose unit is credited back. A miss (matched: false) or a county the atlas lacks (atlas_indexed: false) is a normal answer, exit 0. Each endpoint in the answer carries the same pagination, max_record_count and search_note as county, and the human output prints the Pagination row for a layer that refuses it. For a county we do not serve, the human output prints the answer's coverage block: why, the county office, the county's own data product when it sells one, and the request-county command. For a county that is paused (its terms or a law forbid paid use), the call is not billed and the human output prints what is paused, why, the terms it rests on, since when, the county office and the free county page. On a pay-as-you-go key, a 402 whose billing could not be confirmed prints an operation_id (and puts it in the --json error document). Retry the same address with --op '<operation_id>' within 20 hours of the original request: that retry is never billed twice, and a retry without it is billed as a new lookup. The id is bound to its address: with another address, a chargeable answer is refused and nothing is billed, and an answer that is not chargeable is returned as if no --op were sent.
• request-county names the county by --fips 06003, or by --state <slug> --county <slug>. Slugs are strict: lowercase a-z and 0-9 with single hyphens (illinois, kane-county). --email, --note and --source-url (https only) are optional. The email is used only to tell you when the county ships. Repeating the same request within 24 hours returns the first request's id. It is free, needs no key, and sends none. Limited to 5 requests per hour per IP address.
• login writes the key to ~/.config/uks/credentials.json, or to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/uks/ when that is an absolute path, or to %APPDATA%\uks\credentials.json on Windows. On Linux and macOS the file is readable only by you (0600) and the folder is 0700. On Windows no ACL is set, so the file inherits the folder's permissions. --key - reads the key from stdin, which keeps it out of your shell history. The key is not checked against the server. uks whoami does that.

Global flags

Flag	Meaning
--json	Print one JSON document on stdout, errors included
-q, --quiet	Drop notes and hints on stderr
--api-base <url>	API origin, default https://urbankitstudio.com
-h, --help	Help for uks or for one command
-V, --version	CLI version and the atlas data version it carries

uks never prints color, so NO_COLOR and a non-TTY stdout need nothing special. It refuses to send a key over plain http to anything but a loopback address (localhost, ::1, 127.0.0.0/8).

Environment

Variable	Meaning
UKS_API_KEY	API key; wins over the saved one
UKS_API_BASE	API origin, same as --api-base (the flag wins)
XDG_CONFIG_HOME	Where the credentials file goes on Linux and macOS, when it is an absolute path
UKS_DEBUG	Print a stack trace on an unexpected internal error

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success, including "no match" and "not in the atlas" answers
1	Refused: no key where one is needed, a key the server rejects (401/402/403), or a plan without the feature
2	Could not run: bad arguments, a network failure, a request the server rejects (other 4xx), a server error (5xx), an unreadable response
3	Rate limit, quota or county-request budget exhausted (429)

A 429 carries one of four error strings:

error	From	Meaning
rate-limited	whoami, usage, request-county	The per-IP limit (60 per minute on the account routes, 5 per hour for county requests). Not your quota.
rate_limited	lookup	The key's quota, or the anonymous per-IP limit without a key.
unbilled-limit	lookup	Your account, all its keys together, made as many lookups today that charged nothing (such as addresses in counties we do not serve) as its cap: 500 on Free, 150 on Starter, 2,000 on Studio, 10,000 on Pro and pay-as-you-go. A charged call never counts, nor does an upstream outage (a 502, 503 or 504; a 500 counts), a pay-as-you-go answer for a served county from a stale cached geocode, or a pay-as-you-go 402 usage_not_recorded other than one whose op token was minted for another address or another tool. Lookups on the account pause until 00:00 UTC. Not your quota, and not billed.
request-budget	request-county	The daily budget for county requests is spent. The request was not stored.

The reset time goes to stderr and, with --json, into the error document as reset_at, retry_after_seconds, limit and remaining. upgrade_url is present only on a lookup quota 429 (rate_limited), because only that body carries one.

For agents

• Pass --json on every call. Success prints the server's document unchanged for plans, whoami, usage, lookup and request-county, and the CLI's own document for states, find, county, login, logout and --version.
• An error with --json prints {"ok": false, "error": "<code>", "message": "...", "exit_code": N, ...} on stdout and one line on stderr. Branch on error and the exit code, never on message.
• Set UKS_API_KEY in the environment rather than running uks login.
• Exit 3 means wait until reset_at, or upgrade at upgrade_url when it is present.
• A lookup error carrying operation_id is the one exit 1 worth retrying: repeat the same address with --op set to it.
• Exit 2 from a network failure or a 5xx is worth one retry. Exit 2 with error "bad-arguments" is not. Fix the call. Exit 1 is not retryable.
• states, find and county never touch the network, so they are free and work offline.

License

MIT