Purpose

The purpose of the CoCalc API (application programming interface) is to make essential operations within the CoCalc platform available to automated clients. This allows embedding of CoCalc services within other products and customizing the external look and feel of the application.

Protocol and Data Format

Each API command is invoked using an HTTPS POST request. All commands support request parameters in JSON format, with request header Content-Type: application/json. Many commands (those that do not require lists or objects as parameters) also accept request parameters as key-value pairs, i.e. Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

Responses are formatted as JSON strings. Note that it is possible for a request to fail and return a response code of 200. In that case, the response string may contain helpful information on the nature of the failure. In other cases, if the request cannnot be completed, a response code other than 200 may be returned, and the response body may be a generic HTML message rather than a JSON string.

Authentication

A valid API key is required on all API requests. To learn how to create an API key, see API Keys.

Additional References

• The CoCalc API tutorial illustrates API calls in Python.

• The CoCalc PostgreSQL schema definition src/packages/util/db-schema has information on tables and fields used with the API query request.

• The API test suite src/smc-hub/test/api/ contains mocha unit tests for the API messages.

• The CoCalc message definition file src/packages/util/message.js contains the source for this guide.

API Message Reference

The remainder of this guide explains the individual API endpoints. Each API request definition begins with the path of the URL used to invoke the request, for example /api/v1/change_email_address. The path name ends with the name of the request, for example, change_email_address. Following the path is the list of options. After options are one or more sample invocations illustrating format of the request as made with the curl command, and the format of the response.

The following two options appear on all API messages (request parameters are often referred to as ‘options’ in the guide):

• event: the command to be executed, for example “ping”

• id: uuid for the API call, returned in response in most cases. If id is not provided in the API message, a random id will be generated and returned in the response.