API Requests

Once you find an API endpoint you'd like to use (either that you have published or someone else has), then you probably want to start getting data back. We'll walk through how to execute individual endpoints, one request at a time, and get data back.

Making a request using an endpoint on the Stevesie platform is similar to accessing a webpage using your web browser on your computer. When you hit "execute" on our platform, we will make an HTTP request to the configured host and URL, passing all the headers and parameters you specify based on the endpoint inputs.

Each API can have specific "inputs" declared that are injected into the raw HTTP request (defined in the previous section). You can populate these inputs on the UI or via making a request over the Stevesie API and the input variables will be injected into the HTTP request.

When the API sends back data, it's typically in JSON format specific to the API provider, often messy, overly-hierarchical and non-standard. The Stevesie platform automatically "flattens" these JSON structures into a standardized "collections" format you can more easily access. You can also access the raw JSON if needed for internal development purposes.

Any request made to an API is performed over a proxy, either one that we provide as part of our service or as a proxy you provide via a custom proxy URL. This means that your IP address' reputation is protected at all times.

All users have a global rate limit of one request per second per proxy across all endpoints. Premium tier users have increased rate limits to one request per second per proxy per app (meaning they can access multiple APIs at one request per second each simultaenously). You will receive a rate limiting error from us if you exceed this rate!

Third party API providers may also have their own rate limits which you may encounter. For example, some APIs may only let you access them a few times every minute (which is more restrictive than our rate limit).

Next: Data Extractors »