Getting started using the Apigee API

This page applies to Apigee and Apigee hybrid.

View Apigee Edge documentation.

The Apigee API can be used to programmatically develop and manage APIs with a set of RESTful operations.

You can use the Apigee API to integrate API proxy management into your organization's software development lifecycle (SDLC). A common usage of the Apigee API is to write scripts or code that deploy API proxies or that migrate API proxies from one environment to another, as part of a larger automated process that also deploys or migrates other applications.

For more information, see Apigee API.

Enabling the Apigee API

Ensure that you have enabled the Apigee API. The simplest way to enable an API for your project is to use the Google Cloud console. For complete details, see Step 3: Enable APIs.

Obtaining an OAuth 2.0 access token

The Apigee API supports OAuth 2.0 for user authentication. With OAuth 2.0, you exchange your Google Cloud credentials for an access token that you can then use to make secure calls to the Apigee API. Once you obtain a token, you do not need to exchange your credentials again until the token expires.

Note: Short-lived service account credentials are useful for scenarios where you need to grant limited access to resources for trusted service accounts, and they reduce the risk compared to using long-lived credentials like service account keys. For more information, see Generating an OAuth 2.0 access token.

Get a token using Google Cloud credentials

To get a token using your Google Cloud credentials:

1. Authorize gcloud to access the Cloud Platform with your Google user credentials:

   gcloud auth login

2. Get a token for the currently active account:

   export TOKEN=$(gcloud auth print-access-token)

3. When you call an Apigee API, pass the access token in the Authorization header. For example:

   curl "https://apigee.googleapis.com/v1/organizations" -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

Get a token using a Google Cloud service account key

To get a token using a service account key for authorization:

1. Generate a key for your service account using the GCP console, as described in Creating and managing service account keys.

   A JSON file that contains your service account credentials is downloaded to your computer.

2. Set the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable to the path where the service account key is located:

   export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=your_sa_credentials_file.json

3. When you call an Apigee API, use the Google Cloud CLI to add an access token to the Authorization header. For example:

   curl "https://apigee.googleapis.com/v1/organizations" -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)"

Setting environment variables for Apigee API requests

The Apigee API and gcloud CLI examples provided throughout the documentation use one or more of the environment variables defined in the following table.

By setting the environment variables upfront to meaningful values in your environment, you can copy and paste the example requests to execute them in your own environment with minimal or no modifications.

Environment variable	Description
$API	Name of your API proxy.
$APIPRODUCT	Name of the API product.
$APP	ID of an app.
$DEVELOPER_EMAIL	Email address of the developer.
$ENV	Name of your environment, such as test or prod.
$ID	Resource ID.
$KEY	Consumer key.
$NAME	Name of your resource.
$ORG	Your Apigee organization.
$REV	Revision number of your API proxy.
$SHAREDFLOW	Name of your shared flow.
$TYPE	Resource type.

Using curl

The examples within this section use curl to demonstrate how to develop applications using the Apigee API. curl is an open source, command-line tool for transferring data with URL syntax, supporting common protocols such as HTTP and HTTPS.

The following table summarizes the curl command-line options used in the examples.

Option	Description
-d '{}' --data @filename --data-binary @filename	Defines the request body, which you can pass directly or by specifying a filename.
-F file=@filename --form file=@filename	Defines form-based data that you can pass by specifying a filename.
-H --header	Defines a request header. You must pass the following information in the request header: Authorization header: OAuth 2.0 token for user authentication, as described in Obtaining an OAuth 2.0 access token. Content-Type header: Content type of the request body being sent when creating or updating a resource (POST, PATCH, PUT) using the API.
-X	Specifies the type of request (GET, POST, and so on).

For example:

curl "https://apigee.googleapis.com/v1/organizations/$ORG/apis" \
   -X GET \
   -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

Where $TOKEN is set to your OAuth 2.0 access token, as described in Obtaining an OAuth 2.0 access token.