Paste your API token to the authorization field. To get a token, Create an account and learn how to generate a token.

General Description

  • This endpoint retrieves detailed metadata for a specific dataset.
  • Metadata includes available fields, data types, and descriptions.
  • Use this endpoint to understand the structure of a dataset before querying or downloading it.

Request

Endpoint

GET http://api.brightdata.com/datasets/{dataset_id}/metadata

Path Parameters

ParameterTypeDescription
dataset_idstringThe unique identifier of the dataset

Headers

HeaderTypeDescription
AuthorizationstringYour API token for authentication

Response

Response Example

{
    "id": "gd_l1vijqt9jfj7olije",
    "fields": {
        "name": {
            "type": "text",
            "active": true,
            "description": "The name of the company"
        },
        "url": {
            "type": "url",
            "required": true,
            "description": "The URL or web address associated with the company"
        },
        "cb_rank": {
            "type": "number",
            "description": "Crunchbase rank assigned to the company"
        }
    }
}

Response Fields

FieldTypeDescription
idstringUnique identifier for the dataset
fieldsobjectContains metadata about each field in the dataset

Field Metadata

Each field in the fields object contains the following attributes:

AttributeTypeDescription
typestringData type of the field (e.g., text, number, url)
activebooleanIndicates if the field is currently active
requiredbooleanIndicates if the field is mandatory (if applicable)
descriptionstringBrief description of the field

Example Use Case

Fetching Dataset Metadata

To retrieve metadata for the “Crunchbase companies information” dataset:

Request

GET http://api.brightdata.com/datasets/gd_l1vijqt9jfj7olije/metadata

Response

{
    "id": "gd_l1vijqt9jfj7olije",
    "fields": {
        "name": {
            "type": "text",
            "active": true,
            "description": "The name of the company"
        },
        "url": {
            "type": "url",
            "required": true,
            "description": "The URL or web address associated with the company"
        },
        "cb_rank": {
            "type": "number",
            "description": "Crunchbase rank assigned to the company"
        }
    }
}

Troubleshooting & FAQs

Issue: “Unauthorized” response

Solution: Ensure you have included a valid API token in the request header.

Issue: “Dataset not found”

Solution: Verify that the dataset_id is correct and exists in the dataset list.

Issue: “Field missing in metadata”

Solution: Some fields may be inactive or unavailable for certain datasets.