REST API Developer Guide

REST API
Quick Start
Quick Start Prerequisites
Step One: Set Up Authorization
Step Two: Walk Through the Sample Code
Using Other Tools
Examples
Generating an OpenAPI 3.0 Specification for sObjects REST API (Beta)
Reference
PDF

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Quick Start Prerequisites

Complete all the prerequisites before proceeding with the rest of the quick start.

Sign Up for Developer Edition

Developer Edition provides a free and easy solution to obtain a Salesforce org for testing and development. If you already have an org suited for development, such as a sandbox, you can also use it to follow along with the quick start instructions.

Don’t use a production org that hosts live data to complete this quick start.

Warning

Sign up for Developer Edition at https://developer.salesforce.com/signup. After signing up, you receive an email with password information.

Confirm That You Have API Enabled Permission

Confirm that you have API Enabled as a permission for your user profile by following the instructions in User Permissions in Salesforce Help.

Create a Connected App

Follow the instructions in Create a Connected App in Salesforce Help, and configure the app as needed. To follow this quick start, you must complete the first two tasks: Configure Basic Connected App Settings and Enable OAuth Settings for API Integration.

While enabling OAuth settings, take note of these details that are useful to complete this quick start.

  • The specific callback URL isn’t important for this quick start, which uses the username-password authorization flow. If you don’t have a specific callback URL to use, enter https://localhost.
  • Assign the Access and manage your data OAuth scope to your connected app for API access. You can also assign other scopes if needed for other reasons.
  • Introspection isn’t supported by the username-password authorization flow used in this quick start, so it isn’t necessary to enable the Introspect all tokens option.

In your connected app, make sure that the Permitted Users setting has All users may self-authorize selected. Follow the instructions in Manage OAuth Access Policies for a Connected App in Salesforce Help.

Note

Get a Consumer Key and a Consumer Secret

Obtain the consumer key and consumer secret of the connected app that you created.

  1. From Setup, enter App Manager in the Quick Find box, and then select App Manager.
  2. Click the dropdown menu for the connected app that you created, and select View.
  3. If the values for the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret fields are hidden, click Click to reveal.
  4. Copy the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret values and save them for later use in this quick start.

Familiarize Yourself with cURL

The examples in this guide use cURL to send requests. Even if you’re not using cURL, familiarize yourself with it enough to be able to understand the examples and translate them into the tool that you are using. See the documentation at curl.haxx.se/.