Every developer has been there. You need a list of countries for a dropdown menu. You find a CSV, format it into a JSON file, and bundle it with your app. Job done. The same goes for currencies. It’s a rite of passage.
But modern applications demand so much more. What happens when you need to manage time zones for scheduling notifications globally? Or classify customers by industry code for your B2B platform? Suddenly, you're juggling multiple static files, wrestling with inconsistent formats, and praying the data doesn't go stale.
This is the silent, tedious work that slows down development and creates data silos. The problem isn't the data itself; it's the management overhead.
At reference.do, we believe developers should focus on building features, not managing static data. Our platform provides a single source of truth for all your reference data, accessible through one simple, reliable API.
While we have all the ISO standards you'd expect, let's explore five more interesting datasets you can use today to build richer, smarter, and more consistent applications.
Why it's important: If your application is used by people in more than one city, you need to handle time correctly. The IANA Time Zone Database is the global standard for this. It’s essential for scheduling events, logging timestamps accurately, localizing user experiences, and avoiding embarrassing off-by-one-hour errors due to Daylight Saving Time.
The old way: Downloading a massive text file from IANA, writing a custom parser, and creating a job to check for infrequent but critical updates.
The reference.do way: A single API call to a dataset that is always kept in sync with the official source.
// Get all official time zone identifiers
const timezones = await an.reference.get('iana-time-zones');
/*
=> [
{ "tz": "America/New_York", "offset": "UTC-5", "country_code": "US" },
{ "tz": "Europe/London", "offset": "UTC+0", "country_code": "GB" },
...
]
*/
Why it's important: Simple country lists are great, but for business analytics, you often need to think in terms of regions. "How are we performing in Southeast Asia?" or "What's our market penetration in Northern Europe?" The United Nations M49 standard provides a hierarchical classification of continents, regions, and sub-regions.
The old way: Building and maintaining complex mapping tables in your own database to group countries into sales territories or analytical regions.
The reference.do way: Instantly enrich your country data with globally recognized regional context, perfect for dashboards and BI tools.
Why it's important: Airport codes are a classic reference dataset, but their use goes far beyond flight booking websites. They are a precise, unambiguous way to reference a major metropolitan area. They're invaluable for logistics and shipping, event management platforms, and even "home airport" fields in user profiles.
The old way: Scraping a website or buying an expensive, static list that quickly becomes outdated as new airports are built and codes change.
The reference.do way: Query a live, up-to-date list of IATA and ICAO codes, complete with names, locations, and other metadata.
Why it's important: Design consistency is key. Providing your front-end applications, marketing site, and even internal tools with a standard set of color names and hex codes ensures your brand stays coherent everywhere.
The old way: Hardcoding hex values in CSS files across dozens of projects, leading to subtle (and not-so-subtle) inconsistencies.
The reference.do way: Use a public dataset like the Tailwind CSS color palette or, even better, upload your own brand's color palette as a custom dataset.
// Get your company's official brand colors
const colors = await an.reference.get('my-brand-palette');
/*
=> [
{ "name": "Primary Blue", "hex": "#0A3D62", "rgb": "10, 61, 98" },
{ "name": "Accent Orange", "hex": "#F47B20", "rgb": "244, 123, 32" },
...
]
*/
This is the real game-changer. The most valuable reference data is often the data that is unique to your business.
The old way: A shared Google Sheet, a constants.js file checked into git, or a special table in a production database that everyone is afraid to touch. It's inconsistent, hard to update, and a nightmare to distribute across microservices.
The reference.do way: Upload your custom dataset and manage it like any other. Version it, query it, and integrate it across all your applications through the same simple API. You get a single source of truth for your own business-critical information, managed with the same rigor as global ISO standards.
The common thread connecting these datasets is the power of centralization and abstraction. By moving the storage, maintenance, and distribution of this data to a dedicated service, you eliminate redundant work and ensure consistency.
Stop the cycle of copying, pasting, and parsing static files in every new application. It’s time to embrace a single source of truth for your reference data.
Ready to stop wrestling with static files and embrace Data. On. Demand.? Explore our standard datasets and get your API key today at reference.do.