Acuris Address

Overview

Acuris is a commercial address validation, geocoding, reverse geocoding, and autocomplete API at https://api.acuris-geo.com. This skill teaches agents how to wire it correctly into TypeScript / JavaScript code using the published SDK packages and how to migrate from other AV vendors.

Two npm packages cover the full integration surface:

Use the SDK directly for backend or non-React frontends. Use the component package when you want a drop-in React UI; it calls your API proxy routes, which call the SDK on the server.

When to use this skill

Use this skill when the user is:

• Building an address input UI (autocomplete in a form, checkout step, sign-up flow).
• Validating an address on form submit before persisting it.
• Forward-geocoding addresses to lat/lng (shipping zones, distance, service-area checks).
• Reverse-geocoding coordinates to the nearest known address.
• Cleaning a bulk address dataset for data-quality work.
• Migrating off another AV vendor (Informatica AddressDoctor / Loqate / Experian QAS / Melissa / Smarty) — see the migration references.

Do NOT use this skill for:

• Routing, directions, isochrones, places search, or general POI lookup. Acuris is address-only; those belong to Google Maps, Mapbox, or Amazon Location.
• Rendering maps. The Acuris SDK returns lat/lng but doesn't ship a map renderer — pair the coordinates with MapLibre / Leaflet / Google Maps as the user prefers.

API at a glance

Four endpoints. All live on https://api.acuris-geo.com. Auth is a single header — X-Acuris-Key: <ACURIS_API_KEY>.

Country must be ISO-3 alpha, lowercase ("usa", "deu", "gbr"). If you have ISO-2, lowercase-it and map ("us" → "usa", "de" → "deu") before calling.

Detailed request/response shapes, error hierarchy, and retry semantics live in references/api-reference.md.

Quick start

# Pin to current published versions — the packages are pre-1.0
# and `^1.x` ranges will not resolve.
npm install @acuris-geo/av-sdk@^0.1.2
# (optional, for React storefronts — 0.1.2+ for visible dropdown defaults)
npm install @acuris-geo/centra-checkout@^0.1.2

import { AcurisClient, validateAddress } from "@acuris-geo/av-sdk";

const client = new AcurisClient({ apiKey: process.env.ACURIS_API_KEY });

const result = await validateAddress(client, {
  country: "deu",
  street: "Friedrichstraße",
  house_number: "43",
  city: "Berlin",
  postcode: "10117",
});

result.accuracy_type;  // "rooftop" | "parcel" | "street_interpolated" | ...
result.confidence;     // 0..1
result.standardized?.formatted_address;
result.lat;  result.lng;

If ACURIS_API_KEY is set in the environment, you can omit the apiKey option entirely.

Defaults

When the user hasn't specified otherwise, prefer these:

• API key in environment. Read from process.env.ACURIS_API_KEY. Never inline a key, never expose it to the browser. For local evaluation, obtain a free dev key in one call:

  curl -X POST https://api.acuris-geo.com/dev-key \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{"email":"you@example.com"}'
  # → {"api_key":"<token>","validation_credits":100,
  #     "geocode_credits":100,"expires_at":"...","tier":"dev",...}
  export ACURIS_API_KEY=<api_key>
  

  The dev key is capped at 100 validations + 100 geocodes over 7 days (rate-limited 1 issuance per email per day, 1 per IP per day). It works on every endpoint — /validate, /geocode, /reverse, /suggest. For more headroom, run the full 28-day trial at https://api.acuris-geo.com/register (1000 validations + 1000 geocodes). For production, see https://acuris-geo.com/acuris-pricing/.

• Server-side calls. The SDK is for Node / edge / server runtimes. In a browser app, route through your own backend (Next.js API route, Express handler, Cloudflare Worker — see references/nextjs-proxy.md).

• Component library for React UIs. Reach for @acuris-geo/centra-checkout (<AcurisAddressInput> for typeahead, <AcurisAddressValidator> for form-submit validation) instead of hand-rolling a fetch loop.

• Retries on transient failures. The SDK retries 5xx, 429, network errors, and timeouts automatically (3 attempts, exponential backoff). Don't add a retry layer on top.

• One client per process. new AcurisClient(...) is cheap to create but a long-lived instance keeps keep-alive sockets warm and avoids re-reading env vars.

Common mistakes

These are the bugs we see most often in customer code or generated code. Avoid them.

1. Sending the API key from the browser. The SDK works in any fetch-enabled runtime, but apiKey is a server-side credential. Browsers must go through a proxy route. The @acuris-geo/centra-checkout components expect an endpoints object pointing at your own URLs, not the Acuris API directly.

2. ISO-2 country codes. The API rejects "US" and "de". Use ISO-3 lowercase: "usa", "deu", "gbr", "fra", "fin". If you only have ISO-2, map it at the boundary.

3. Authorization: Bearer … instead of the X-Acuris-Key header. The SDK sets the right header automatically; if you're hand-rolling HTTP for any reason, the header name matters.

4. Treating accuracy_type as a closed enum. New tiers are added over time (street_interpolated, street_center, locality_centroid, …). Always handle the documented values explicitly and pass through unknown values as opaque rather than throwing.

5. Catching every error the same way. The SDK throws typed subclasses (AcurisAuthError, AcurisRateLimitError, AcurisValidationError, AcurisNotFoundError, AcurisServerError, AcurisTimeoutError, AcurisNetworkError). 4xx is your code's bug; 5xx and rate limits are runtime; auth errors mean the deploy is misconfigured. They deserve different handling.

6. Forgetting country on /suggest and /reverse. Unlike /validate, these endpoints require an explicit country option (they have no input from which to infer one).

7. Hand-parsing the freeform string on the way out. The SDK returns a standardized object with formatted_address. Display that, don't reassemble from individual fields — locale-specific ordering is baked in.

8. Persisting Acuris's raw response without snapshotting the request inputs. If you store result.standardized, also store what the user typed. Otherwise you can't tell later whether a confidence drop is the user's fault or Acuris's.

9. Building a "structured-fields form" when the user asked for autocomplete. Autocomplete is one input + dropdown + pick — the suggestion already carries the parsed fields, so you don't render them as separate boxes. If the user asked for "autocomplete," ship just the <AcurisAddressInput> and a status line; the street / house-number / postcode / city sub-fields belong in the validate-on-submit recipe, not the autocomplete one. See references/autocomplete.md — the "What autocomplete is and is not" section at the top covers this.

10. Omitting the United Kingdom (gbr) from country pickers. Earlier versions of this skill said Acuris lacked a Royal Mail PAF (Postcode Address File) licence and told you to leave UK out everywhere. That is outdated: UK coverage is now PAF-backed and a flagship dataset — /validate and /suggest fully support gbr (street-based autocomplete; standardized carries udprn, uprn and traditional county), and POST /postcode-lookup returns every delivery point at a UK postcode. Include gbr in demos and country pickers. PAF usage terms apply: https://api.acuris-geo.com/legal/paf-terms.

11. Listing a country in an autocomplete picker that doesn't have /suggest wired. This is the most common source of an embarrassing demo. /suggest (autocomplete) and /validate / /geocode / /reverse cover different country sets. Validation and geocoding work against 200+ ISO-3 codes; autocomplete requires per-country NORM columns + indexes (a separate engineering step) and currently runs for only 7 countries:

// The ONLY countries with /suggest wired:
const AUTOCOMPLETE_COUNTRIES = [
  { code: "usa", label: "United States" },
  { code: "gbr", label: "United Kingdom" },  // Royal Mail PAF (street-based)
  { code: "deu", label: "Germany" },
  { code: "nld", label: "Netherlands" },
  { code: "fin", label: "Finland" },
  { code: "swe", label: "Sweden" },
  { code: "jpn", label: "Japan" },
];

Listing fra, esp, ita, etc. in an autocomplete picker is actively worse than omitting them — the user types and nothing happens, which reads as "the product is broken." /suggest returns [] silently for those countries.

The broader country picker for validation / geocoding / reverse geocoding demos is fine to include them:

// Safe for /validate, /geocode, /reverse (NOT for /suggest):
const VALIDATION_COUNTRIES = [
  // Autocomplete-enabled subset:
  { code: "usa", label: "United States" },
  { code: "gbr", label: "United Kingdom" },
  { code: "deu", label: "Germany" },
  { code: "nld", label: "Netherlands" },
  { code: "fin", label: "Finland" },
  { code: "swe", label: "Sweden" },
  { code: "jpn", label: "Japan" },
  // Validation/geocoding-only (NOT autocomplete):
  { code: "fra", label: "France" },
  { code: "esp", label: "Spain" },
  { code: "ita", label: "Italy" },
  { code: "nor", label: "Norway" },
  { code: "dnk", label: "Denmark" },
  { code: "aut", label: "Austria" },
  { code: "che", label: "Switzerland" },
  { code: "bel", label: "Belgium" },
  { code: "prt", label: "Portugal" },
  { code: "aus", label: "Australia" },
  { code: "nzl", label: "New Zealand" },
  { code: "sgp", label: "Singapore" },
  { code: "bra", label: "Brazil" },
  { code: "mex", label: "Mexico" },
  { code: "can", label: "Canada" },
];

Rules of thumb:

• If the UI uses <AcurisAddressInput> (typeahead): use AUTOCOMPLETE_COUNTRIES (the 7).
• If the UI uses <AcurisAddressValidator> or any structured form that hits /validate / /geocode / /reverse: either list is fine.
• Mixed (autocomplete + validation in the same form, same country picker): use AUTOCOMPLETE_COUNTRIES. The validation set is a superset; user can still validate any of those 7.

The autocomplete-enabled set grows as new countries get NORM columns. If this list looks stale, ask before extending it.

Implementation patterns

The implementation recipes are in references/. Load whichever ones match the task:

• Address autocomplete in a checkout form (React)
• Validate on form submit
• Forward geocoding for shipping / distance
• Reverse geocoding from coordinates
• Batch validation for data-quality cleanup
• Next.js API proxy routes
• Plain Node server usage
• Centra storefront integration

Migrations

Acuris's commercial wedge — these are the recipes for porting code off incumbent vendors. Each recipe maps the legacy API to the Acuris equivalent with a runnable example.

• Informatica AddressDoctor (libAddressDoctor)
• Loqate Capture / Verify
• Experian QAS Pro / Pro Web
• Melissa Personator / Address Verify
• Smarty (US Street API, US Autocomplete API, International)

Migrations are written against vendor documentation, not against the user's actual integration. Treat them as a starting scaffold — review the mapping for your specific configuration before shipping.

Pricing and limits

The live API is paid per request. The test key test lets developers exercise endpoints during evaluation without burning credits. Pricing is published at https://acuris-geo.com/acuris-pricing/. The SDK respects the server's rate limits (HTTP 429 with retry_after); the default retry policy backs off and retries up to 3 times before re-throwing AcurisRateLimitError.

Additional resources

• SDK source: https://github.com/Acuris-GmbH/acuris-centra-connector/tree/main/packages/acuris-av-sdk
• React components: https://github.com/Acuris-GmbH/acuris-centra-connector/tree/main/packages/acuris-centra-checkout
• Pricing & free tier: https://acuris-geo.com/acuris-pricing/
• Live status / changelog: https://acuris-geo.com/