---
title: "Guardian API"
description: "Automate Guardian with its REST API: keys, authentication and example code."
product: "Guardian"
edition: "Classic"
type: "reference"
url: "https://docs.cloudhouse.com/guardian/classic/api/the-guardian-api/"
---
# Guardian API

The Guardian API provides a feature-rich method of interacting with Guardian's core features in a programmatic way. The API can be used to automate a variety of processes and enable greater flexibility when monitoring your data.

Applies to: `Guardian Classic`

!!! tip

    To access the complete set of Guardian API documentation, see [Guardian API (v2)](https://core-api.cloudhouse.com/).

## Service API key and Secret key

An API access key and a secret key are required to interact with all endpoints. A secret key is generated when you enable or disable the Guardian API. Only one secret key is generated per account. The corresponding API access key can be retrieved during this process, see below for more information.

**To access your account keys, complete the following steps**:

1. In the top right corner of Guardian, click the name of your organisation to display the **Account Menu** drop-down.

    ![Account menu drop down](https://docs.cloudhouse.com/guardian/classic/assets/images/guardian/api/account-menu-drop-down.png)

2. Then, select **Manage Accounts** to display the **Accounts** page. Here, a list of organisation accounts are displayed.

    ![Manage accounts](https://docs.cloudhouse.com/guardian/classic/assets/images/guardian/api/manage-accounts.png)

3. Select the relevant organisation account by clicking the **Name**. The corresponding account management page is displayed.

    ![Accounts page](https://docs.cloudhouse.com/guardian/classic/assets/images/guardian/api/accounts-page.png)

4. Select 'Enabled' from the **API Access** drop-down list. The **Secret Key** field is then displayed with required value.

    ![Api access key](https://docs.cloudhouse.com/guardian/classic/assets/images/guardian/api/api-access-key.png)

    Now, you can copy the **Secret Key** and **Service API Key** as needed.

By default, there is one API secret per organisation account. If your Guardian instance has multiple organisation accounts, you will need to keep a service API key and secret pair for each organisation account for scripts that interface with multiple accounts.

!!! tip

    Optionally, you can enable personal API keys, also referred to as user-specific API keys. Instead of one API secret key per organisation, personal API keys can be used to help identify which users performed what actions within Guardian. For more information, see [Personal API Keys](https://docs.cloudhouse.com/guardian/classic/account/organizations/organization-account-settings/index.md#personal-api-keys). To enable this feature, contact your Cloudhouse Representative.

## Authentication methods

There are two methods to form the API request headers for `Authentication`:

- Token authentication.
- Basic authentication.

For more information and examples of each method, see below.

### Token authentication

For this method, the `Authorization` request header is formed by concatenating your **Service API Key** and your **Secret Key**, where:

`Authorization: Token token="[Service API Key][Secret Key]"`

#### cURL example

`curl -H 'Authorization: Token token="[Service API Key][Secret Key]"' https://app.cloudhouse.com/api/v2/nodes.json`

### Basic authentication

For the `Basic Auth` method, the following process is used:

The username is supplied with the **Service API Key**, and the password will be your **Secret Key**.

#### cURL example

`curl --user [Service API Key]:[Secret Key] https://app.cloudhouse.com/api/v2/nodes.json`

!!! warning

    PowerShell users are highly recommended to use the HTTPS endpoints instead of HTTP. The Windows .NET Framework does not propagate the original request headers as a security measure. While the HTTP endpoints will redirect (via a 301 status code) to the corresponding HTTPS endpoints, PowerShell will drop the authorisation token headers during the redirect, resulting in a 401 Unauthorised Error as a response.

## API example code

To access API code examples, see our [Git repository](https://github.com/cloudhousetech/content) of API code examples in a variety of scripting languages.

!!! tip

    If your scripting language is not available, or you'd like to request a specific use case, you can submit a pull request within the repository or contact helpdesk@cloudhouse.com to raise a request.