An application programming interface, or API, is a piece of software that allows two computers or software applications to interface with one another. APIs allow radically different pieces of software to communicate with one another in order to share data, instructions, or resources without revealing their internal structures to one another.

Flatfile uses APIs to allow you to access and interact with your data while keeping your data, your personal information, and anything you may have stored in Flatfile safe and secure.

Specifically, Flatfile uses a REST API architecture. “REST” is an acronym for REpresational STate Transfer. This architecture is based on accessing specific endpoints with specific query parameters matched with secure API keys. In short, you can only use Flatfile’s REST API if you know 1) the specific endpoint you need to access, 2) the specific query parameters you need to make from that endpoint, and 3) have the secret access keys that allow you to access that endpoint.

To learn more about using Flatifle’s REST API, see our API documentation.

Flatfile also provides a GraphQL API architecture (for Portal 2.0, 3.0, and Workspaces only). This enables you to retrieve only the data you want from your endpoints, rather than retrieving all possible data from a REST endpoint and having to parse it to get what you need.

For documentation of the queries and mutations available, as well as a playground for building queries, visit our GraphQL resource.