littlesis

LittleSis — people, organizations, and the ties between them

Query the LittleSis API — an open database of powerful people and organizations and their relationships (employment, board seats, ownership/investment, donations). Use this connector when the question is about entities and the edges between them (who worked where, who funds whom, who sits on which board), as opposed to macro numbers (std::data/finance/fred), company filings (std::data/finance/edgar), or news (std::data/finance/gdelt).

No API key required (the API is rate-limited; HTTP 503 means "Rate Limit Exceeded").

Two-step recipe. LittleSis edges carry entity IDs, not names. So: use littlesisConnections to see who an entity is tied to (neighbor entities by name, filtered by category); use littlesisRelationships to get the terms of a tie (amount, dates, roles). Resolve a name to an id first with littlesisSearch.

Relationship categories are friendly strings: position (employment/roles), education, membership, family, donation, transaction, lobbying, social, professional, ownership, hierarchy, generic.

Usage

import { littlesisSearch, littlesisConnections } from "std::data/people/littlesis"

node main() {
  const hits = littlesisSearch("Andreessen Horowitz") catch []
  if (hits.length > 0) {
    const linked = littlesisConnections(hits[0].id, "ownership") catch []
    for (e in linked) { print("${e.type}  ${e.name}") }
  }
}

Types

Entity

A LittleSis person or organization. type is "Person" or "Org" (from primary_ext). relationshipId/relationshipCategory are populated only on connections results.

/** A LittleSis person or organization. `type` is "Person" or "Org" (from primary_ext).
    `relationshipId`/`relationshipCategory` are populated only on connections results. */
export type Entity = {
  id: number;
  name: string;
  type: string;
  blurb: string;
  types: string[];
  aliases: string[];
  website: string;
  url: string;
  relationshipId?: number;
  relationshipCategory: string
}

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Relationship

One typed edge. entity1Id/entity2Id are LittleSis entity IDs, NOT names.

/** One typed edge. entity1Id/entity2Id are LittleSis entity IDs, NOT names. */
export type Relationship = {
  id: number;
  category: string;
  categoryId: number;
  entity1Id: number;
  entity2Id: number;
  description1: string;
  description2: string;
  amount?: number;
  startDate: string;
  endDate: string;
  isCurrent?: boolean
}

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Effects

std::littlesis

effect std::littlesis {
  op: string;
  query: string
}

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Functions

littlesisSearch

littlesisSearch(name: string, page: number): Result<Entity[]>

Search LittleSis for people and organizations by name. Returns matching entities (id, name, type "Person"/"Org", blurb, aliases, website, url). Use the returned id with the other littlesis functions. Empty result set returns an empty list.

@param name - The person or organization name to search for @param page - Result page, 10 per page (default 1)

Parameters:

Name	Type	Default
name	string
page	number	1

Returns: Result<Entity[]>

Throws: std::littlesis

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littlesisEntity

littlesisEntity(id: number): Result<Entity>

Fetch one LittleSis entity by its numeric id (from littlesisSearch). Returns the full profile (name, type, blurb, aliases, website, url). Unknown id returns a failure.

@param id - The LittleSis entity id

Parameters:

Name	Type	Default
id	number

Returns: Result<Entity>

Throws: std::littlesis

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littlesisRelationships

littlesisRelationships(id: number, category: string, sort: string): Result<Relationship[]>

List an entity's relationships (typed edges) by its id. Each edge carries the two entity IDs, role labels (description1/description2), amount, dates, and category. Filter with a friendly category name. Edges carry entity IDs, not names — use littlesisConnections for neighbor names.

@param id - The LittleSis entity id @param category - Optional category filter: position, education, membership, family, donation, transaction, lobbying, social, professional, ownership, hierarchy, generic (empty = all) @param sort - Optional sort: "amount", "oldest", or "recent" (empty = default)

Parameters:

Name	Type	Default
id	number
category	string	""
sort	string	""

Returns: Result<Relationship[]>

Throws: std::littlesis

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littlesisConnections

littlesisConnections(id: number, category: string): Result<Entity[]>

List the entities connected to an entity (neighbors, by name), optionally filtered by a friendly category name. Lighter than littlesisRelationships and name-bearing — the preferred first hop for "who is X tied to". Each result also carries the linking relationshipId/category.

@param id - The LittleSis entity id @param category - Optional category filter: position, education, membership, family, donation, transaction, lobbying, social, professional, ownership, hierarchy, generic (empty = all)

Parameters:

Name	Type	Default
id	number
category	string	""

Returns: Result<Entity[]>

Throws: std::littlesis

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