The latest articles on DEV Community by Zelothorn (@zelothornapi). https://dev.to/zelothornapi https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4051980%2Facef0e6e-dd5a-4a27-bb8e-cfb12358007b.png https://dev.to/zelothornapi en Zelothorn Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:33:14 +0000 https://dev.to/zelothornapi/i-built-an-api-that-explains-public-companies-in-plain-english-and-wont-give-buysell-advice-3hgc https://dev.to/zelothornapi/i-built-an-api-that-explains-public-companies-in-plain-english-and-wont-give-buysell-advice-3hgc <p>If you've ever tried to pull company data from SEC filings, you know the pain: EDGAR gives you raw XML, filings run hundreds of pages, and turning any of it into something a normal person can read is a real project. I wanted that data in plain English, as clean JSON, without building the whole pipeline myself. So I built it.</p> <h2> What it does </h2> <p>You hit one endpoint with a ticker:<br> </p> <div class="highlight js-code-highlight"> <pre class="highlight http"><code><span class="err">GET https://zelothorn.com/api/v1/company/AAPL </span></code></pre> </div> <p>And you get back structured JSON:</p> <ul> <li> <strong>company</strong> — name, ticker, CIK</li> <li> <strong>summary</strong> — a plain-language explanation of what the company does and how it makes money</li> <li> <strong>earnings</strong> — whether the latest quarter beat or missed estimates, plus recent history</li> <li> <strong>filings</strong> — key and recent SEC filings, each linked to the official document</li> <li> <strong>links</strong> — direct links to SEC EDGAR and the company's page</li> </ul> <p>No key required right now. You can try any ticker in your browser or drop it straight into your app.</p> <h2> The decision behind it </h2> <p>The API explains what a company is and what it has filed. It does not do analysis — no price targets, no ratings, no buy/sell signals, no valuations.</p> <p>That was a deliberate choice. A tool that gives buy/sell output is a different and riskier kind of product, and every tool in this space seems to drift toward it eventually. I wanted to see if the explanation layer is useful on its own, separate from the prediction layer everyone rushes to add.</p> <h2> The question I have </h2> <p>That is the part I am unsure about, and it is why I am posting instead of just shipping quietly:</p> <p>If you are building something — a portfolio tracker, a finance newsletter tool, a fintech side project — do you want company data pre-explained in plain English? Or do you just want the raw numbers and you would rather write your own summaries?</p> <p>The pitch, if the answer is "pre-explained," is basically: don't spend hours parsing SEC data and writing company-description components — drop this in and get readable company data in a few minutes.</p> <p>But I genuinely don't know if that is a real need or just something I found neat to build. So I would take any honest reaction, including "this already exists" or "I would never use this." Data comes from SEC EDGAR plus an earnings source; summaries are generated and cached. Built solo.</p> <p>There is a live example you can try here: <a href="https://zelothorn.com/developers" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://zelothorn.com/developers</a></p> api backend software startup