We are excited to announce that Looker API 4.0 is generally available in Looker 22.4. The generally available API 4.0 (API 4.0 GA) has multiple breaking and additive changes and promotes multiple endpoints from Beta to Stable. Check out our API reference for detailed API 4.0 specs. We updated our Looker-supported and Community-supported SDKs to support Looker API 4.0 GA endpoints. For more information, see API and SDK support policies and API Versioning. The rest of this article outlines the breaking changes, mitigations, and features you can look forward to when migrating to API 4.0 GA.
Who should read this?
This document is for you if you use the Looker API through Looker-supported SDKs, Community-supported SDKs, or the API itself. Read the following section that maps to the Looker API version you use.
Pre-GA API 4.0 Users
If you use API 4.0, read this section. It covers the breaking changes and available mitigations when you migrate to API 4.0 GA.
API 4.0 GA includes changing all entity ID fields from numeric integer type to string type. For example, GET /groups/{group_id} endpoint returns id as type string instead of type int64.
Please read through the following table for impact and mitigations specific to your API 4.0 endpoint usage:
| Usage | Potential Impact1 | Prevention |
| Looker mobile apps | Outdated installations of Looker mobile apps stop working | Have users update to the latest version of the Looker mobile app(s) |
| Looker Supported2 SDKs | ||
| TypeScript SDK (4.0 API) | No impact | No action needed |
| Python SDK (4.0 API) | No impact | No action needed |
| Ruby SDK (4.0 API) | No impact | No action needed |
| Community Supported2 SDKs | ||
| Swift SDK | Runtime exceptions | Update SDK to v22.0+; then resolve resulting type errors, if any |
| Kotlin SDK | No impact | No action needed |
| LookR SDK | No impact | No action needed |
| C# SDK | No impact | No action needed |
| Go SDK | Runtime exceptions | Update SDK to v22.0+; then resolve resulting type errors, if any |
| Other | ||
| Using 4.0 API without an SDK (or with externally provided libraries) | Possible runtime errors, depending on language's type sensitivity | Review code for dependencies on the type of any ID fields and add support for string-type ID fields. Also review this additional guidance. |
1: Assuming common usage patterns that may include the use of Looker's ID fields, but not unusual usage patterns such as applying numeric operations to IDs.
2: Looker API & SDK support. Community-supported libraries are not officially supported by Looker.
API 3.1 Users
If you use API 3.1, read this section. It covers the additional features and changes that API 4.0 makes available to you. Keep in mind, all our Looker-supported and Community-supported SDKs mainly support API 4.0. See SDK and API support policies for more information.
Additional API 4.0 GA Features
For convenience, we list the most notable and useful additive API 4.0 changes for you:
- Board, board item, and board section creation and management. See the Board documentation page fore more information about boards.
- Query additional connection info such as databases, schemas, columns, and tables. Set and update additional connection fields.
- OAuth apps and users creation and management. See the OAuth documentation page for more information about OAuth.
- Search groups with hierarchy and roles.
- Search roles with user count.
- Get and set Looker instance settings. See the Settings documentation page for more information about settings.
- Alert creation and management. See the Alerts documentation page for more information about alerts.
- SSH tunnels and SSH servers creation, management, and testing. See the SSH documentation page for more information about SSH.
- Move and copy dashboards.
- Get relative URLs for new dashboards.
- Move and copy Looks.
- Signed embed and non-signed embed secret, URL, and user creation and management.
- Get refresh token to refresh login access token.
- Limit and offset the results from getting all LookML models and all users.
- Limit and offset the results from searching users.
- Get the Looker instance API spec in Swagger 2.x JSON.
API 4.0 GA Deprecation Changes
API 4.0 GA replaces several deprecated API 3.1 endpoints with improved features. We list the endpoints affected below:
- Deprecated Homepage endpoints have been removed. Please make use of board endpoints instead of homepages. See Presenting content with boards.
- Deprecated Space endpoints have been removed. Make use of folder endpoints instead of Space. See Organizing and managing access to content.
API 3.0 Users
API 3.0 is deprecated, and it is recommended you migrate to API 4.0.
- Only API 4.0 supports all Looker-supported and Community-supported SDKs to ease your development. Check out our SDK repository.
- API 4.0 introduces multiple new features and enhancements as listed in the Additional API 4.0 GA Features section on this page.
Wrap-Up
You can look forward to new features and additive changes to be added to API 4.0 and you can always find the latest changes in our API reference. For more information, see API and SDK support policies and API Versioning. We know that breaking changes are not ideal. Unless an extreme issue arises, we will not make any breaking changes to our generally available API 4.0. We hope our generally available Looker API 4.0 helps you develop more productively and easily on the Looker platform.