apis-kibana-conventions.asciidoc

Management API conventions

The Management REST APIs for {serverless-full} let you manage resources that are available in multiple solutions. These resources include connectors, data views, and saved objects. If you’ve previously used the {stack}, the Management APIs are similar to {kib} APIs.

Management API calls are stateless. Each request that you make happens in isolation from other calls and must include all of the necessary information for {kib} to fulfill the request. API requests return JSON output, which is a format that is machine-readable and works well for automation.

To interact with Management APIs, use the following operations:

• GET: Fetches the information.

• POST: Adds new information.

• PUT: Updates the existing information.

• DELETE: Removes the information.

You can prepend any Management API endpoint with kbn: and run the request in {dev-tools-app} → Console. For example:

GET kbn:/api/data_views

Check out [devtools-run-api-requests-in-the-console].

Request headers

When you call Management APIs outside of the Console, you must provide a request header. The Management APIs support the Authorization, Content-Type, and kbn-xsrf headers.

Authorization: ApiKey

Management APIs use key-based authentication. You must create an API key and use the encoded value in the request header. To learn about creating keys, go to [api-keys].

Content-Type: application/json

You must use this header when you send a payload in the API request. Typically, if you include the kbn-xsrf header, you must also include the Content-Type header.

kbn-xsrf: true

You must use this header for all API calls except GET or HEAD operations.

For example:

curl -X POST \
  "${KIBANA_URL}/api/data_views/data_view" \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey ${API_KEY}" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'kbn-xsrf: true' \
  -d '{
    "data_view": {
      "title": "books*",
      "name": "My Books Data View"
      }
    }
'