Catalogue numbers are permanent. They are not versions, rankings or a count of how many things have shipped. OB-001 marks the first project recorded here: ip-api.
The observation
Products constantly need to know something about the person on the other side of a request, and the only thing they reliably have is an IP address. ip-api set out to turn that address into an answer that is quick to get and clear about what it means.
The decision
One request, one JSON response, with location and risk in the same place. The first commit was on 12 February 2022, and the first answers about location followed within days. Everything since has been about the signals around a location: VPNs, proxies, Tor, data centres, threat lists and, later, email addresses.
The working result
ip-api is released and actively maintained. It has official SDKs in eight languages, a hosted MCP server for AI agents, and paid plans from €10 a month. It stays at its own address, ip-api.io; the catalogue page on oddbench.co explains what it is and where it came from.
Joining the catalogue changes nothing for people who use it. It means that from now on its history is kept in one place, next to whatever comes after it.