{
 "$schema": "https://orvik.app/api/v1/openapi.json",
 "id": "orvik",
 "title": "Orvik — what the app and the site actually do",
 "description": "A machine-readable description of Orvik: the subjects it covers, what the free web tools do without an account, how photographs are handled and by whom, and — at equal length — what it does not do. Every capability names the page that documents it.",
 "url": "https://orvik.app/api/v1/orvik.json",
 "documentation": "https://orvik.app/api/",
 "generated": "2026-09-17",
 "publisher": {
  "name": "Orvik",
  "legal_name": "Vast Flow, LLP",
  "url": "https://orvik.app/",
  "documentation": "https://orvik.app/api/",
  "contact": "support@orvik.app",
  "compiled_by": {
   "name": "Merey Tleugazin",
   "url": "https://orvik.app/about/",
   "note": "Not a biologist, geologist or veterinarian. The compilation work, the sourcing and the method are his; the taxonomy and the published standards are cited to the bodies that set them."
  }
 },
 "licence": {
  "id": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "name": "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International",
  "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "attribution": "Orvik (https://orvik.app)",
  "covers": "The compilation: the key structure, the entry list, the trait coding, the joins and every derived column. Use it commercially, modify it, redistribute it; credit Orvik with a link."
 },
 "upstream_sources": [],
 "scope_limits": {
  "no_identification": "No endpoint identifies a specimen. The keys narrow possibilities from traits a reader has observed; they never return a determination, and a filtered list is not an answer.",
  "no_safety_clearance": "Nothing here certifies that anything is safe to eat, touch or handle. The toxicity, mushroom, wild berry, snake and caterpillar keys flag risk and name the poison centre; they do not clear anything.",
  "no_prices": "No market prices, appraisals or valuations. The coin endpoint publishes metal content only, and the spot price is supplied by the caller."
 },
 "not_published": [
  {
   "what": "The competitor app snapshot behind /compare/ and /alternatives/.",
   "why": "The metadata and in-app purchase lists come from the Apple App Store and are Apple's to license, not ours. The positioning is each publisher's own marketing. Republishing either keyless and CC BY would relicense content we do not own and distribute our competitors' copy at our own cost.",
   "instead": "https://orvik.app/compare/"
  },
  {
   "what": "Individual occurrence records — coordinates, dates, observer, photographs.",
   "why": "Orvik holds only aggregate counts and month histograms. The records themselves are the upstream databases' to distribute, and they already do so properly.",
   "instead": "https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/search"
  },
  {
   "what": "Any identification made by the Orvik app, and any user photograph.",
   "why": "None is retained in a form that could be published, and publishing it is not something a user agreed to.",
   "instead": "https://orvik.app/privacy/"
  }
 ],
 "count": 12,
 "disclosure": "Published by Orvik about Orvik. Comparisons with other apps are at /compare/, where they are signed.",
 "not_included_count": 8,
 "data": {
  "name": "Orvik",
  "publisher": "Vast Flow, LLP",
  "what_it_is": "A phone app that reads a photograph and proposes an identification, with the plausible look-alikes listed underneath rather than hidden. Pattern recognition on an image: dependable where the distinguishing character is visible in a photograph, unreliable where it is not.",
  "platforms": [
   {
    "os": "iOS",
    "store": "Apple App Store",
    "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/orvik-identifier-ai-lens/id6757122990"
   },
   {
    "os": "Android",
    "store": "Google Play",
    "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vastflow.coinradar.app"
   }
  ],
  "subjects": [
   {
    "id": "plants",
    "label": "Plants",
    "covers": "Flowers, trees, mushrooms",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/plants/"
   },
   {
    "id": "insects",
    "label": "Insects",
    "covers": "Bugs, butterflies, spiders",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/insects/"
   },
   {
    "id": "animals",
    "label": "Animals",
    "covers": "Mammals, reptiles, marine",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/animals/"
   },
   {
    "id": "birds",
    "label": "Birds",
    "covers": "Species, songs, habitats",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/birds/"
   },
   {
    "id": "rocks",
    "label": "Rocks",
    "covers": "Minerals, gems, fossils",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/rocks/"
   },
   {
    "id": "collectibles",
    "label": "Collectibles",
    "covers": "Coins, stamps, antiques",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/collectibles/"
   },
   {
    "id": "food",
    "label": "Food",
    "covers": "Fruits, dishes, ingredients",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/food/"
   },
   {
    "id": "nature",
    "label": "Nature",
    "covers": "Clouds, formations, phenomena",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/nature/"
   }
  ],
  "capabilities": [
   {
    "id": "photo-identification",
    "summary": "Proposes a name from a photograph, with ranked look-alikes.",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/app/"
   },
   {
    "id": "species-detail",
    "summary": "Species details, care notes and toxicity warnings for an identification.",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/app/"
   },
   {
    "id": "scan-history",
    "summary": "Identifications are saved to a history in the app.",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/app/"
   },
   {
    "id": "follow-up-chat",
    "summary": "Ask follow-up questions about an identification.",
    "page": "https://orvik.app/app/"
   }
  ],
  "free_on_the_web": {
   "identification_keys": 23,
   "calculators": 5,
   "key_entries": 749,
   "dataset_entries": 749,
   "account_required": false,
   "anything_uploaded": false,
   "javascript_required": false,
   "javascript_note": "Every key renders all of its entries into the page HTML. Turning scripting off loses the narrowing and nothing else, which is why crawlers that do not run JavaScript see the whole catalogue.",
   "index": "https://orvik.app/tools/",
   "api": "https://orvik.app/api/"
  },
  "pricing": {
   "free_to_download": true,
   "free_tier": "Identification with a daily limit. No account is required to start.",
   "paid_tier": "A subscription removes the daily limit and adds detailed reports and priority support.",
   "prices_published_here": false,
   "prices_note": "Store pricing varies by territory and changes without a site rebuild, so no figure is published here. The App Store and Google Play listings are authoritative."
  },
  "data_handling": {
   "policy": "https://orvik.app/privacy/",
   "photographs_processed_by": [
    {
     "name": "OpenAI (ChatGPT API)",
     "purpose": "Identification from the image."
    },
    {
     "name": "Grok Vision",
     "purpose": "Identification from the image."
    }
   ],
   "analytics_and_advertising": [
    {
     "name": "Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics (Google)",
     "receives": "Device information, usage events, crash data."
    },
    {
     "name": "Facebook SDK / Meta",
     "receives": "Device identifiers and app events, for advertising measurement and targeting."
    },
    {
     "name": "AppsFlyer",
     "receives": "Device identifiers and install / engagement data, for attribution."
    },
    {
     "name": "RevenueCat",
     "receives": "Subscription and purchase data."
    }
   ],
   "used_for_model_training": true,
   "training_note": "The privacy policy states that collected information is used to train and improve Orvik's identification models. Stated here because an agent should not have to infer it.",
   "on_device_processing": false,
   "works_offline": false
  },
  "not_included": [
   {
    "what": "Any guarantee that an identification is correct.",
    "detail": "It is a proposal with ranked alternatives, and the app says so. A great many identifications turn on a character a camera cannot capture — smell, spore print, the underside of a rock, sound."
   },
   {
    "what": "Clearance to eat, touch or handle anything.",
    "detail": "Orvik never certifies edibility or safety. The mushroom, wild berry, plant toxicity, snake and caterpillar pages narrow possibilities and name the poison centre."
   },
   {
    "what": "Medical, veterinary or legal advice.",
    "detail": "Including for a suspected poisoning, a bite or a sting, where the correct action is to contact a poison centre or a doctor rather than an app."
   },
   {
    "what": "Valuation or appraisal of coins, gems or collectibles.",
    "detail": "The coin calculator publishes metal content only, and the caller supplies the spot price."
   },
   {
    "what": "Offline identification.",
    "detail": "Photographs are processed by a remote service; there is no on-device model."
   },
   {
    "what": "A desktop or web version of the identification app.",
    "detail": "iOS and Android only. The free keys and calculators at /tools/ run in any browser and are a different thing."
   },
   {
    "what": "An API for third-party identification.",
    "detail": "The /api/v1/ endpoints publish reference data and the key entries. There is no endpoint that identifies an image, and no authenticated API of any kind."
   },
   {
    "what": "Bird song or audio identification.",
    "detail": "Bird pages describe songs; the app identifies from photographs."
   }
  ],
  "support": {
   "email": "support@orvik.app",
   "about": "https://orvik.app/about/",
   "terms": "https://orvik.app/terms/"
  }
 }
}