API things

[momijizukamori]

I kept meaning to write this up but kaberett's volunteer weekend was a good extra nudge, heh.


what is live
- To generate API keys (and delete them), go here - this can be found via Manage Accounts -> Mobile -> Advanced Options (which is at the bottom of the mobile tab)
- The JSON-formatted spec is here and doesn't require an API key to access - we don't have a more human-friendly version yet, though any client that can parse OpenAPI v3.0 specs can take that - Postman is the one I've tried.
- There are not many routes yet - we wanted to get the backend solid before adding stuff that had potential privacy/security risks if something in the backend was wrong
- To use the API key, you need to add an Authorization header to your HTTP request with the value 'Bearer [api key]'.



what is in progress
- I have a pile of routes mostly-written, in this branch. They probably need some light editing, as we moved from OpenAPI v2.0 to v3.0 after I wrote these, and we also hadn't implemented API keys yet. They also need LOTS AND LOTS of testing, oh god please, I'm so bad at QA.
- I wrote a quick'n'dirty primer to adding moar routes here on the wiki. Happy to answer additional questions on it!



what really needs to be done
- TESTING TESTING TESTING
- image-upload-by-API is near the top of the list of 'most wanted things I haven't written yet'
- I want to add a nice UI for the spec a la redoc but I'm not totally sold on that as a look and could use design input and inspiration
- We really need some intro/'API for beginners' text to go on said doc page, I am probably not the right person to write this because I Know Too Much
- It would be great to have a priv system for API keys (so that you could make a key that can read and not post, or vice versa). There are stubs in the API key files for this, but it needs UI and DB stuff as well as... filling out the stubs.
- 404s under /api should really return a JSON 404 message and not... the entire HTML output of the 404 page.

Comments

Re: And API question/feedback

[nataraj]

What I should get via journals/{username}/accesslists? I am trying to do

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer UJxroElRIqdhgRVYS7y4h6DrFGPP5Wcz" http://www.nataraj.hack.dreamwidth.net/api/v1/journals/nataraj/accesslists

this auth key belongs to nataraj user. It has mutual access and subscription with nataraj2 user. But I still get empty list. How should it work? What should I do to get non-empty list?

Re: And API question/feedback

[momijizukamori]

Ah, the implementation on that one is broken I think, because I started writing it and then realized I needed to figure out the bitmask arithmetic that backs access filters. For the future, you can set up access filters here: https://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/circle/editfilters and that response should return information about them (which you need if you want to set one as an entry filter). 'accesslist' is maybe not the best wording - we call them access filters on the editing page for them, and 'access groups' on the newer entry creation page.