TeamCity REST API Reference 2023.05 Help

About TeamCity REST API

TeamCity provides a REST API for integrating external applications and creating script interactions with the TeamCity server. It 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 documentation comprises general descriptions of TeamCity REST API and autogenerated sections Models, Locators, and Methods, which reflect the state of the current REST API version. This article gives a quick overview of the REST API principles.

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

General Usage Principles

You can start working with the REST API by opening /app/rest/server URL in your browser: this page gives several pointers to explore the API.

The full list of supported requests and names of parameters is exposed in the Swagger format via the /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>" /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 Server host>:<port>/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 Server host>:<port>/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. /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 /app/rest/ or /app/rest/latest URL the latest version is available.

Earlier versions might be available under the /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.

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 /app/rest/<apiVersion>/<restApiPath>?<parameters>

where

  • TeamCity URL and port define the server name and the port used by TeamCity.

  • <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 locator formats can be:

  • single value: alphanumeric text without the symbols like ,:-( )

  • 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. See the Common Use Cases section 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 /app/rest/projects to get the list of projects.

  • Use /app/rest/projects/<projectsLocator>, for example /app/rest/projects/id:RESTAPIPlugin (example ID is used) to get the full data for the REST API Plugin project.

  • Use /app/rest/buildTypes/id:bt284/builds?locator=<buildLocator>, for example /app/rest/buildTypes/id:bt284/builds?locator=status:SUCCESS,tag:EAP (example IDs are used) to get builds.

  • Use /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:

  1. Add the rest.cors.optionsRequest.allowUnauthorized=true internal property.

  2. Restart the TeamCity server.

  3. 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.

Roadmap and Feedback

This documentation is a work in progress. If you have any ideas or requests concerning its development, you are welcome to share it via any convenient feedback channel.

Our next plans:

  • Improve descriptions and add more details

  • Add usage examples for locator dimensions

  • Describe more example use cases

  • Add usage examples for methods

Last modified: 21 September 2022
REST API Quick Start