How to publish datasets to data.gouv.fr

This guide explains how to configure your collection to automatically publish datasets to data.gouv.fr, the French government’s open data platform.

Prerequisites

• A data.gouv.fr account
• An API key from your data.gouv.fr account settings
• Either an existing dataset or an organization where you can create datasets

Choose your approach

There are two ways to publish datasets to data.gouv.fr:

Option 1: Automatically create a dataset in an organization

This approach is suitable when you want the system to automatically create and manage the dataset within your organization.

1. Find your organization on data.gouv.fr (or demo.data.gouv.fr for testing)
2. Copy the organization ID or slug from the URL (e.g., open-terms-archive)
3. Add it to your configuration at dataset.datagouv.organizationIdOrSlug
4. Set dataset.title in your configuration (this will be used as the dataset title)

The dataset will be automatically created if it doesn’t already exist in the organization.

Option 2: Use an existing dataset

This approach is suitable when you already have a dataset created on data.gouv.fr and want to update it automatically.

1. Create a dataset on data.gouv.fr (or demo.data.gouv.fr for testing)
2. Copy the dataset ID from the Informations tab on the dataset page (e.g., 6914a64b17a0a61222)
3. Add it to your configuration at dataset.datagouv.datasetId

Configure your collection

1. Add configuration settings

In your collection’s configuration file (e.g., config/production.json), add the datagouv settings under the dataset section:

For Option 1 (automatic creation):

{
  "dataset": {
    "title": "<collection_name> collection dataset",
    "datagouv": {
      "organizationIdOrSlug": "open-terms-archive"
    }
  }
}

For Option 2 (existing dataset):

{
  "dataset": {
    "title": "<collection_name> collection dataset",
    "datagouv": {
      "datasetId": "6914a64b17a0a91bb0a61222"
    }
  }
}

3. Configure for testing (optional)

If you want to test with the demo environment first, add useDemo:

{
  "dataset": {
    "title": "<collection_name> collection dataset",
    "datagouv": {
      "organizationIdOrSlug": "open-terms-archive",
      "useDemo": true
    }
  }
}

4. Set the API key

Create a .env file at the root of your collection repository (if it doesn’t already exist) and add your data.gouv.fr API key:

OTA_ENGINE_DATAGOUV_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

Test your configuration

You can test your configuration by manually publishing a dataset:

npx ota dataset --publish

This will create and publish a dataset to data.gouv.fr. Check the output to verify the dataset was published successfully.

Set up automatic publishing

To automatically publish datasets on a schedule, use the --schedule flag:

npx ota dataset --schedule --publish --remove-local-copy

This will publish datasets according to the schedule defined in your configuration (by default, every Monday at 8:30 AM).

Publishing to multiple platforms

data.gouv.fr publishing can be used alongside GitHub or GitLab releases. Simply configure both platforms and datasets will be published to all configured platforms simultaneously.

See the configuration reference for all available options.