Craigslist Categories — Aliases, Descriptions & Sections
This source returns every Craigslist posting category as data, each with its alias, description and section.
{
"session_id": "11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111",
"kind": "craigslist_categories",
"section": null,
"human": "# Craigslist categories\n\n- **Records returned:** 178\n- **Proxy traffic:** 4.1 KB",
"machine": {
"total_items": 178,
"first_item": {
"id": 1,
"alias": "apa",
"description": "apartments / housing for rent",
"section": "housing"
},
"items": [
{
"id": 1,
"alias": "apa",
"description": "apartments / housing for rent",
"section": "housing"
},
{
"id": 2,
"alias": "hou",
"description": "wanted: apts",
"section": "housing"
}
],
"proxy_traffic_bytes": 4221
},
"total_points": 5
}- You send
- Nothing required — optionally a section
- You get back
- Categories with alias, description and section
- Coverage
- Craigslist posting categories across all sections.
- Price
- 5 points per run — $5 per 1,000
- Flat 5 points per successful run, however many categories come back.
Ways to get this data
Three approaches teams use today, and where each one runs into trouble.
| Approach | What it takes | Cost | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading category names off Craigslist by hand | Browse each section and work out the code behind each name | Free, and error-prone | The codes aren't always guessable from the name |
| Maintaining your own list | Build and update a table of categories | Engineering time | Goes stale when Craigslist renames or splits a category |
| NeuralVerge | One request, optionally filtered by section | 5 points flat | Returns the list as it stands at request time, with no history |
What you get back
Every field in the response shown above.
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
total_items | number | How many categories were returned. |
id | number | Craigslist's numeric category ID. |
alias | string | Category alias, the value used for category in Craigslist postings search. |
description | string | Category name as Craigslist shows it, e.g. apartments / housing for rent. |
section | string | Section the category belongs to, e.g. housing. |
How to run it
The same lookup works from the app, the API, or as a tool an agent can call mid-task.
No required parameters; add "section" (housing, for_sale, jobs, gigs, services, community, events, resumes or event_calendar) to limit the list. The sample shows the first two categories.
curl -X POST https://api.neuralverge.ai/functions/v1/run-craigslist-categories \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{}'What teams use it for
Where this field shows up in an actual workflow.
Get the alias to pass as category in Craigslist postings search.
Match Craigslist's sections and categories to your own.
List what Craigslist organises its postings into before you decide what to track.
Coverage, freshness and limits
What this source covers, how fresh it is, and where it stops.
Craigslist posting categories across all sections.
Read at request time.
This source returns the publicly visible list of Craigslist categories, stamped with a session id you can trace.
- —Descriptions are Craigslist's own wording, which can differ from how you would name a category.
- —The list reflects the categories that exist at request time; it doesn't show past changes.
Questions, answered
Pass it as category in Craigslist postings search or Craigslist seller postings to restrict results to that category.
Related sources
Search postings using a category alias from this list.
Directory of Craigslist regional sites.
The same idea on Avito.
Amazon, eBay, Walmart, AliExpress, Alibaba, Avito, Craigslist, Flipkart and Mercari product, seller and review data.
Try craigslist categories on your own data
One request format across every source in the catalog.