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Overview

Steps to get started using the Capstone API. This guide explains the nature of the Capstone API, how to set up your basic authentication header, and walks you through sending your first request.

If you need help please don't hesitate to contact out to our integration support team. Team members are standing by, ready to help you get started.

Capstone API core-concepts

Base URLs

All endpoints are RESTful with the following base URLs:

  • Sandbox: https://api.capstonesandbox.com
  • Production: https://api.capstone.com

The sandbox environment allows you to send test requests without affecting live data. After you have integrated with the sandbox environment, you will be ready to integrate with the production environment by changing the authentication information and base URLs.

Sending requests

The examples in our API reference show how to send requests to the Capstone API using cURL, but feel free to requests using your preferred HTTP client. You can also download our Postman Collection or check out one of our software development kits.

Examples

The examples included in this documentation are on a Unix-based OS. If you need help getting started with another operating system, please reach out to our support team.

Authentication

Most requests in the Capstone API use basic authentication. Basic authentication is a common authentication method in which you create an authentication header using your username and password. (Before moving on, please make sure you have a Capstone account with a validated email address.)

To create your authentication header, follow the steps below:

  1. Create a username + password string

    Create a string with your Capstone username and password, separated by a colon. In the example below, the username is me@mysite.com and the password is mypassword.

me@mysite.com:mypassword
  1. Encode your username and password

    Base64 the string from step 1. You can use your preferred encoding tool, as long as it is secure.

$ echo -n me@mysite.com:mypassword | base64
bWVAbXlzaXRlLmNvbTpteXBhc3N3b3Jk
  1. Create the authorization header

    Prefix the value from step 2 with the string "Authorization: Basic ". The result is your authentication header

Authorization: Basic bWVAbXlzaXRlLmNvbTpteXBhc3N3b3Jk
  1. Send a request

    Include your authentication header in every request to the Capstone API.

curl -X get https://api.capstonesandbox.com/v3/whoAmI \
-H 'Accept: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Basic bWVAbXlzaXRlLmNvbTpteXBhc3N3b3Jk'

Your first request

To start getting familiar with our API, send a request to the Who Am I endpoint. A successful request will return information about the user whose credentials were used to create the basic authentication header

This information includes:

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Username
  • A list of the user's access rights

Example request

curl -X GET https://api.capstonesandbox.com/v3/whoAmI \
-H 'Accept: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Basic <Your basic authentication>'

Example 200 response

{
"firstName": "Livia ",
"lastName": "Alves",
"userName": "liv.alves@example.com",
"accessRights": {
"role": "admin"
},
"dateLastModified": "2019-03-08T00:58:27.893Z",
"dateCreated": "2018-09-27T14:27:39.626Z",
"phone": "15555555555"
}

Next steps

Depending on your workflow, you may wish to: