The HTTP Client-Server API¶

Note

The HTTP client-server API is currently quite rudimentary. For example, there is no ability to do complex queries using the HTTP API. We plan to add querying capabilities in the future.

When you start Bigchaindb using bigchaindb start, an HTTP API is exposed at the address stored in the BigchainDB node configuration settings. The default is:

http://localhost:9984/api/v1/

but that address can be changed by changing the “API endpoint” configuration setting (e.g. in a local config file). There’s more information about setting the API endpoint in the section about BigchainDB Configuration Settings.

There are other configuration settings related to the web server (serving the HTTP API). In particular, the default is for the web server socket to bind to localhost:9984 but that can be changed (e.g. to 0.0.0.0:9984). For more details, see the “server” settings (“bind”, “workers” and “threads”) in the section about BigchainDB Configuration Settings.

API Root¶

If you send an HTTP GET request to e.g. http://localhost:9984 (with no /api/v1/ on the end), then you should get an HTTP response with something like the following in the body:

{
  "api_endpoint": "http://localhost:9984/api/v1",
  "keyring": [
    "6qHyZew94NMmUTYyHnkZsB8cxJYuRNEiEpXHe1ih9QX3",
    "AdDuyrTyjrDt935YnFu4VBCVDhHtY2Y6rcy7x2TFeiRi"
  ],
  "public_key": "AiygKSRhZWTxxYT4AfgKoTG4TZAoPsWoEt6C6bLq4jJR",
  "software": "BigchainDB",
  "version": "0.6.0"
}

POST /transactions/¶

POST /transactions/¶

Push a new transaction.

Note: The posted transaction should be a valid and signed transaction. The steps to build a valid transaction are beyond the scope of this page. One would normally use a driver such as the BigchainDB Python Driver to build a valid transaction. The exact contents of a valid transaction depend on the associated public/private keypairs.

Example request:

POST /transactions/ HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "transaction": {
    "conditions": [
      {
        "cid": 0,
        "condition": {
          "uri": "cc:4:20:fSlVCKNSzSl0meiwwuUk5JpJ0KLlECTqbd25KyQefFY:96",
          "details": {
            "signature": null,
            "type": "fulfillment",
            "type_id": 4,
            "bitmask": 32,
            "public_key": "9RaWxppkP9UyYWA7NJb5FcgkzfJNPfvPX3FCNw2T5Pwb"
          }
        },
        "amount": 1,
        "owners_after": [
          "9RaWxppkP9UyYWA7NJb5FcgkzfJNPfvPX3FCNw2T5Pwb"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "operation": "CREATE",
    "asset": {
      "divisible": false,
      "updatable": false,
      "data": null,
      "id": "b57801f8-b865-4360-9d1a-3e3009f5ce01",
      "refillable": false
    },
    "metadata": null,
    "fulfillments": [
      {
        "fid": 0,
        "input": null,
        "fulfillment": "cf:4:fSlVCKNSzSl0meiwwuUk5JpJ0KLlECTqbd25KyQefFaf8bQVH1gesZGEGZepCE8_kgo-UfBrCHPlvBsnAsfq56GWjrLTyZ9NXISwcyJ3zmygnVhCMG8xzE6c9fj1-6wK",
        "owners_before": [
            "9RaWxppkP9UyYWA7NJb5FcgkzfJNPfvPX3FCNw2T5Pwb"
        ]
      }
    ]
  },
  "id": "65f1f69b6ebf995a7b2c5ae8a6fb480ce20f0e8f1eb1d77d75f37ab00ccdeec3",
  "version": 1
}

Example response:

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id": "65f1f69b6ebf995a7b2c5ae8a6fb480ce20f0e8f1eb1d77d75f37ab00ccdeec3",
  "version": 1,
  "transaction": {
    "conditions": [
      {
        "amount": 1,
        "condition": {
          "uri": "cc:4:20:fSlVCKNSzSl0meiwwuUk5JpJ0KLlECTqbd25KyQefFY:96",
          "details": {
            "signature": null,
            "type_id": 4,
            "type": "fulfillment",
            "bitmask": 32,
            "public_key": "9RaWxppkP9UyYWA7NJb5FcgkzfJNPfvPX3FCNw2T5Pwb"
          }
        },
        "owners_after": [
          "9RaWxppkP9UyYWA7NJb5FcgkzfJNPfvPX3FCNw2T5Pwb"
        ],
        "cid": 0
      }
    ],
    "fulfillments": [
      {
        "input": null,
        "fulfillment": "cf:4:fSlVCKNSzSl0meiwwuUk5JpJ0KLlECTqbd25KyQefFaf8bQVH1gesZGEGZepCE8_kgo-UfBrCHPlvBsnAsfq56GWjrLTyZ9NXISwcyJ3zmygnVhCMG8xzE6c9fj1-6wK",
        "fid": 0,
        "owners_before": [
          "9RaWxppkP9UyYWA7NJb5FcgkzfJNPfvPX3FCNw2T5Pwb"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "operation": "CREATE",
    "asset": {
      "updatable": false,
      "refillable": false,
      "divisible": false,
      "data": null,
      "id": "b57801f8-b865-4360-9d1a-3e3009f5ce01"
    },
    "metadata": null
  }
}

Status Codes:	201 Created – A new transaction was created. 400 Bad Request – The transaction was invalid and not created.

GET /transactions/{tx_id}/status¶

GET /transactions/{tx_id}/status¶

Get the status of the transaction with the ID tx_id, if a transaction with that tx_id exists.

The possible status values are backlog, undecided, valid or invalid.

Parameters:	tx_id (hex string) – transaction ID

Example request:

GET /transactions/65f1f69b6ebf995a7b2c5ae8a6fb480ce20f0e8f1eb1d77d75f37ab00ccdeec3/status HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com

Example response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "status": "valid"
}

Status Codes:	200 OK – A transaction with that ID was found and the status is returned. 404 Not Found – A transaction with that ID was not found.

GET /transactions/{tx_id}¶

GET /transactions/{tx_id}¶

Get the transaction with the ID tx_id.

This endpoint returns only a transaction from a VALID or UNDECIDED block on bigchain, if exists.

Parameters:	tx_id (hex string) – transaction ID

Example request:

GET /transactions/65f1f69b6ebf995a7b2c5ae8a6fb480ce20f0e8f1eb1d77d75f37ab00ccdeec3 HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com

Example response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "transaction": {
    "conditions": [
      {
        "cid": 0,
        "condition": {
          "uri": "cc:4:20:fSlVCKNSzSl0meiwwuUk5JpJ0KLlECTqbd25KyQefFY:96",
          "details": {
            "signature": null,
            "type": "fulfillment",
            "type_id": 4,
            "bitmask": 32,
            "public_key": "9RaWxppkP9UyYWA7NJb5FcgkzfJNPfvPX3FCNw2T5Pwb"
          }
        },
        "amount": 1,
        "owners_after": [
          "9RaWxppkP9UyYWA7NJb5FcgkzfJNPfvPX3FCNw2T5Pwb"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "operation": "CREATE",
    "asset": {
      "divisible": false,
      "updatable": false,
      "data": null,
      "id": "b57801f8-b865-4360-9d1a-3e3009f5ce01",
      "refillable": false
    },
    "metadata": null,
    "fulfillments": [
      {
        "fid": 0,
        "input": null,
        "fulfillment": "cf:4:fSlVCKNSzSl0meiwwuUk5JpJ0KLlECTqbd25KyQefFaf8bQVH1gesZGEGZepCE8_kgo-UfBrCHPlvBsnAsfq56GWjrLTyZ9NXISwcyJ3zmygnVhCMG8xzE6c9fj1-6wK",
        "owners_before": [
          "9RaWxppkP9UyYWA7NJb5FcgkzfJNPfvPX3FCNw2T5Pwb"
        ]
      }
    ]
  },
  "id": "65f1f69b6ebf995a7b2c5ae8a6fb480ce20f0e8f1eb1d77d75f37ab00ccdeec3",
  "version": 1
}

Status Codes:	200 OK – A transaction with that ID was found. 404 Not Found – A transaction with that ID was not found.

GET /unspents/¶

Note

This endpoint (unspents) is not yet implemented. We published it here for preview and comment.

GET /unspents?owner_after={owner_after}¶

Get a list of links to transactions’ conditions that have not been used in a previous transaction and could hence be called unspent conditions/outputs (or simply: unspents).

This endpoint will return a HTTP 400 Bad Request if the querystring owner_after happens to not be defined in the request.

Note that if unspents for a certain owner_after have not been found by the server, this will result in the server returning a 200 OK HTTP status code and an empty list in the response’s body.

Parameters:	owner_after (base58 encoded string) – A public key, able to validly spend an output of a transaction, assuming the user also has the corresponding private key.

Example request:

GET /unspents?owner_after=1AAAbbb...ccc HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com

Example response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

[
  '../transactions/2d431073e1477f3073a4693ac7ff9be5634751de1b8abaa1f4e19548ef0b4b0e/conditions/0',
  '../transactions/2d431073e1477f3073a4693ac7ff9be5634751de1b8abaa1f4e19548ef0b4b0e/conditions/1'
]

Status Codes:	200 OK – A list of outputs were found and returned in the body of the response. 400 Bad Request – The request wasn’t understood by the server, e.g. the `owner_after` querystring was not included in the request.