Architecture

ICDC provides a federated, zero‑copy access layer for commercial data. At a high level:

• Developer Portal & Catalog — discover data sources, request access, manage tokens
• Proxy Gateway — secure, metered pass‑through to vendor APIs
• AuthN/Z — token issuance and scope enforcement
• Metering & Audit — usage accounting, logs, and analytics

Request flow

1. Client sends request to an ICDC proxy hostname (e.g., nps.api.10xicdc.com).
2. X-Api-Key token is validated and scoped to the target data source.
3. Proxy forwards the request to the vendor API using vendor‑specific auth.
4. Responses are relayed back to the client; metering and logs are recorded.

Client → ICDC Proxy → Vendor API
          │  │           │
          │  ├─ AuthN/Z  │  (vendor auth managed by ICDC)
          └─ Metering & Audit

Components

• Developer Portal: UI for catalog, access requests, tokens, and usage.
• Catalog Service: source metadata, docs links, and eligibility rules.
• Proxy Gateway: hostname routing, auth translation, request/response passthrough.
• Identity & Access: token issuance, scope, org membership and roles.
• Observability: metrics, audit logs, rate limits, and dashboards.

Data handling

• Zero‑copy: data remains at the vendor; ICDC does not persist vendor payloads.
• Least privilege: tokens limited by data source, org, and scope.
• Compliance: access, usage, and errors are auditable.