Why We Built This
Korea exports roughly $754 million in ginseng products annually. At the same time, Korean constitutional medicine - the tradition that produced ginseng knowledge - says about 30% of people should actively avoid it. The same disconnect exists for food, skincare ingredients, and herbal supplements: what works brilliantly for one body type causes problems for another.
That knowledge has lived in Korean-language medical texts and clinical practice for 130 years. It's never been structured in a way that developers, researchers, or product builders could actually use. Until now.
The Sasang API is the first machine-readable dataset of Korean constitutional medicine. Four body types. Dietary guidance. Herb safety. Skincare ingredient compatibility. Symptom mapping. All as clean JSON.
What's In the API
Every endpoint returns structured JSON with Korean names (hangul and hanja), organ balance theory, thermal nature classifications, and practical recommendations.
Constitutional type profiles - full data for each of the four Sasang types including organ balance, body characteristics, personality traits, health tendencies, diet, skincare, and herb compatibility.
Food recommendations - beneficial and harmful foods organized by type, based on thermal nature (warming vs cooling) and organ affinity.
Skincare ingredient ratings - 10 key hanbang ingredients rated by constitutional compatibility. Why ginseng serum causes breakouts for some people and transforms skin for others.
Herb safety data - including a detailed ginseng profile showing exactly which types benefit, which should avoid it, and why. With alternatives for each type.
Symptom mapping - common symptoms linked to constitutional types with the underlying mechanism explained.
How It Works
The API is hosted as static JSON on GitHub Pages. No server, no authentication, no rate limits. You just fetch the endpoint you need:
// Check if ginseng is safe for a So-Yang type
const res = await fetch('https://peaceakame.github.io/sasang-api/api/herb/ginseng.json');
const ginseng = await res.json();
console.log(ginseng.constitutional_guidance['so-yang'].recommendation);
// → "avoid"
console.log(ginseng.constitutional_guidance['so-yang'].explanation);
// → "So-Yang runs hot with a strong Spleen and weak Kidney..."Who This Is For
Wellness app developers - add personalized supplement and diet recommendations based on constitutional typing instead of one-size-fits-all advice.
K-beauty builders - build ingredient compatibility engines that explain why the same serum works for one customer and breaks out another.
Researchers - structured, machine-readable traditional medicine data for academic work. Every data point traceable to Sasang clinical tradition.
Anyone curious - fork the repo, explore the data, build something we haven't thought of yet.
Explore the API
The full documentation, all endpoints, and the dataset are live now:
The dataset is licensed CC BY 4.0 - free to use, modify, and distribute with attribution.
Don't Know Your Body Type Yet?
The API is built on the same Sasang constitutional framework as our free body type quiz. Find your type first, then explore what the data says about you.
Free · 10 questions · 3 minutes