REST API

TeamCity provides a REST API for integrating external applications and creating script interactions with the TeamCity server.

REST API is an open-source plugin bundled since TeamCity 5.0.

TeamCity's REST API allows accessing resources (entities) via URL paths. To use the REST API, an external application makes an HTTP request to the TeamCity server and parses the response.

This page describes principles of the REST API authentication, the structure of requests, and supported HTTP methods.

Refer to the REST API Reference page for a list of the most used data entity requests.
See also request examples.

General Usage Principles

This documentation is not a complete guide and will only provide some initial knowledge useful for working with the API.

The URL examples on this page assume that your TeamCity server web UI is accessible via the http://teamcity:8111 URL.

You can start by opening http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/server URL in your browser: this page will give you several pointers to explore the API.

Use http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/application.wadl to get the full list of supported requests and names of parameters. This is the primary source of discovery for the supported requests and their parameters. The same data is also exposed in the Swagger format via the http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/swagger.json endpoint.

For the list of supported locator dimensions included into the error response, use the $help locator.

Experiment and read the error messages returned: for the most part they should guide you to the right requests.

Suppose you want to know more on the agents and see (in the /app/rest/server response) that there is an /app/rest/agents URL.

Try the /app/rest/agents/ request: see the authorized agent list, get the default way of linking to an agent from the agent's element href attribute.
Get individual agent details via the /app/rest/agents/id:10 URL (obtained from href for one of the elements of the previous request).
If you send a request to /app/rest/agents/$help, or /app/rest/agents/aaa:bbb (supplying unsupported locator dimension), you will get the list of the supported dimensions to find an agent via the agent's locator.
Most of the attributes of the returned agent data (name, connected, authorized) can be used as the <field_name> in the app/rest/agents/<agentLocator>/<field_name> request. Moreover, if you issue a request to the app/rest/agents/id:10/test URL, you will get a list of the supported fields in the error message.

REST Authentication

You can authenticate in the REST API in the following ways:

The preferred way to access REST API is by using the token-based HTTP authentication. Provide your personal TeamCity access token generated on My Settings & Tools | Access Tokens in the HTTP header Authorization: Bearer <token-value>. For example:
curl --header "Authorization: Bearer <token-value>" http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/builds
Using basic HTTP authentication (it can be slow with certain authentications, see below). Provide a valid TeamCity username and password with the request. You can force basic auth by including httpAuth before the /app/rest part, e.g. http://teamcity:8111/httpAuth/app/rest/builds.
Using access to the server as a guest user (if enabled) include guestAuth before the /app/rest part, e.g. http://teamcity:8111/guestAuth/app/rest/builds.
If you are checking REST GET requests from within a browser, and you are logged in to TeamCity in the browser, you can just use /app/rest URL, e.g. http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/builds.

Authentication can be slow when a basic HTTP authentication with a non-built-in module is used. If you want to use basic HTTP authentication instead of token-based one, consider applying the session reuse approach for reusing authentication between sequential requests.

If you perform a request from within a TeamCity build, for a limited set of build-related operations (like downloading artifacts) you can use values of teamcity.auth.userId/teamcity.auth.password system properties as basic credentials (within TeamCity settings you can reference them as %system.teamcity.auth.userId% and %system.teamcity.auth.password% ).

Within a build, the request for current build details can look like:

curl -u "%system.teamcity.auth.userId%:%system.teamcity.auth.password%" "%teamcity.serverUrl%/httpAuth/app/rest/builds/id:%teamcity.build.id%"
 

Superuser access

You can use the super user account with REST API: just provide no username and the generated password logged into the server log.

REST API Versions

As REST API evolves from one TeamCity version to another, there can be incompatible changes in the protocol.

Under the http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/ or http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/latest URL the latest version is available.

Earlier versions might be available under the http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/<version> URL. Our general policy is to supply TeamCity with at least one previous version. The REST API protocol version is the TeamCity version where this protocol was first introduced.
The latest legacy version of the protocol is 2018.1: use 2018.1 instead of <version> to access it. Other bundled versions are: 2017.2, 2017.1, 10.0, 9.1, 9.0, 8.1, 8.0.

Breaking changes in the API are described in the related Upgrade Notes section. Note that additions to the objects returned (such as new XML attributes or elements) are not considered major changes and do not cause the protocol version to increment. Also, the endpoints marked with Experimental comment in application.wadl may change without a special notice in future versions.

URL Structure

The general structure of the URL in the TeamCity API is http://teamcityserver:port/<authType>/app/rest/<apiVersion>/<restApiPath>?<parameters>

where

teamcityserver and port define the server name and the port used by TeamCity. This page uses http://teamcity:8111/ as an example URL.
<authType> (optional) is the authentication type to be used, this is generic TeamCity functionality.
app/rest is the root path of the TeamCity REST API
<apiVersion> (optional) is a reference to a specific version of REST API.
<restApiPath>?<parameters> is the REST API part of the URL.
A typical way to get multiple items is to use <restApiPath> in the form of .../app/rest/<items> (for example, .../app/rest/builds ). These URLs regularly accept the locator parameter which can filter the items returned. Individual items can regularly be addressed by a URL in the form of .../app/rest/<items>/<item_locator>. This URL always returns a single item. If the <item_locator> locator matches several items, the first one is returned. Both multiple and single items requests regularly support the fields parameter.

Locator

In a number of places, you can specify a filter string which defines what entities to filter/affect in the request. This string representation is referred to as locator in the scope of the TeamCity REST API.

The locators formats can be:

single value: text without the following symbols: ,:-( )
dimension allowing you to filter entities using multiple criteria: <dimension1>:<value1>,<dimension2>:<value2>,<dimension3>:(<dimension3.1>:<value3.1>,<dimension3.2>:<value3.2>)
Note that nested locators should be enclosed in parentheses. Refer to each entity description below for the most popular locator descriptions. If in doubt what a specific locator supports, send a request with "$help" as the locator value. In the response, you will get a textual description of what the locator supports. If a request with invalid locators is sent, the error messages often hint at the error and list the supported locator dimensions as well.

Examples:

Use http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/projects to get the list of projects.
Use http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/projects/<projectsLocator>, for example http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/projects/id:RESTAPIPlugin (example ID is used) to get the full data for the REST API Plugin project.
Use http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/buildTypes/id:bt284/builds?locator=<buildLocator>, for example http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/buildTypes/id:bt284/builds?locator=status:SUCCESS,tag:EAP (example IDs are used) to get builds.
Use http://teamcity:8111/app/rest/builds/?locator=<buildLocator> to get builds by build locator.

Supported HTTP Methods

GET: retrieves the requested data. For example, .../app/rest/entities usually retrieves a list of entities, .../app/rest/entities/<entity locator> retrieves a single entity
POST: creates the entity from the payload submitted. To create a new entity, one regularly needs to post a single entity data (i.e. as retrieved via GET) to the .../app/rest/entities URL. When posting XML, be sure to specify the Content-Type: application/xml HTTP header.
PUT: updates the data from the payload submitted. Accepts the same data format as retrieved via GET request to the same URL. Supported for some entities for URLs like .../app/rest/entities/<entity locator>
DELETE: removes the data at the URL, for example, for the .../app/rest/entities/<entity locator>

Logging

You can get details on errors and REST request processing in the logs\teamcity-rest.log server log.

If you get an error in response to your request and want to investigate the reason, look into rest-related server logs.

To get details about each processed request, turn on debug logging (for example, set Logging Preset to debug-rest on the Administration/Diagnostics page or modify the Log4J jetbrains.buildServer.server.rest category).

CORS Support

The TeamCity REST API can be configured to allow cross-origin requests using the rest.cors.origins internal property.

To allow requests from a page loaded from a specific domain, add the page address (including the protocol and port, wildcards are not supported) to the comma-separated internal property rest.cors.origins. For example, rest.cors.origins=http://myinternalwebpage.org.com:8080,https://myinternalwebpage.org.com.

To enable support for a preflight OPTIONS request:

Add the rest.cors.optionsRequest.allowUnauthorized=true internal property.
Restart the TeamCity server.
Use the /app/rest/latest URL for the requests. Do not use /app/rest, do not use the httpAuth prefix. If that does not help, enable debug logging and look for related messages. If there are none, capture the browser traffic and messages to investigate the case.

API Client Recommendations

When developing a client using the REST API, consider the following recommendations:

Make the root REST API URL configurable (for example, allow specifying an alternative for app/rest/<version> part of the URL). This will allow directing the client to another version of the API if necessary.
Ignore (do not error out) item's attributes and sub-items which are unknown to the client. New sub-items are sometimes added to the API without version change and this will ensure the client is not affected by the change.
Set large (and make them configurable) request timeouts. Some API calls can take minutes, especially on a large server.
Use HTTP sessions to make consecutive requests (use the TCSESSIONID cookie returned from the first authenticated response instead of supplying raw credentials all the time). This saves time on authentication which can be significant for external authentication providers.
Beware of partial answers when requesting list of items: some requests are paged by default. Value of the count attribute in the response indicate the number of the items on the current page and there can be more pages available. If you need to process more (or all) items, read and process the nextHref attribute of the response entity for items collections. If the attribute is present it means there might be more items when queried by the URL provided. Related locator dimensions are count (page limit) and lookupLimit (depth of search). Even when the returned count is 0, it does not mean there are no more items if there is the "nextHref" attribute present.
Do not increase the lookupLimit value in the locators without a second thought. Doing so has the direct effect of loading the server more and may require increased amounts of CPU and memory. It is assumed that those increasing the default limit understand the negative consequences for the server performance.
Do not abuse the ability to execute automated requests for TeamCity API: do not query the API too frequently and restrict the data requested to only that necessary (using due locators and specifying necessary fields ). Check the server behavior under load from your requests. Make sure not to repeat the request frequently if it takes time to process the request.

Response Formats

The TeamCity REST APIs returns HTTP responses in the following formats according to the HTTP "Accept" header:

Format	Response Type	HTTP "Accept" header value
plain text	single-value responses	text/plain
XML	complex value responses	application/xml
JSON	complex value responses	application/json

Full and Partial Responses

By default, when a list of entities is requested, only basic fields are included into the response. When a single entry is requested, all the fields are returned. The complex field values can be returned in full or basic form, depending on a specific entity.

It is possible to change the set of fields returned for XML and JSON responses for the majority of requests.This is done by supplying the fields request parameter describing the fields of the top-level entity and sub-entities to return in the response. An example syntax of the parameter is: field,field2(field2_subfield1,field2_subfield1). This basically means "include field and field2 of the top-level entity and for field2 include field2_subfield1 and field2_subfield1 fields". The order of the fields specification plays no role.

Examples:

http://teamcity.jetbrains.com/app/rest/buildTypes?locator=affectedProject:(id:TeamCityPluginsByJetBrains)&fields=buildType(id,name,project)
 

http://teamcity.jetbrains.com/app/rest/builds?locator=buildType:(id:bt345),count:10&fields=count,build(number,status,statusText,agent,lastChange,tags,pinned)
 

At this time, the response can sometimes include the fields/elements not specifically requested. This can change in the future versions, so it is recommended to specify all the fields/elements used by the client.

Last modified: 11 November 2020