| `GET` | Access one or more resources and return the result as JSON. |
| `POST` | Return `201 Created` if the resource is successfully created and return the newly created resource as JSON. |
| `GET` / `PUT` / `DELETE` | Return `200 OK` if the resource is accessed, modified or deleted successfully. The (modified) result is returned as JSON. |
| `DELETE` | Designed to be idempotent, meaning a request to a resource still returns `200 OK` even it was deleted before or is not available. The reasoning behind this, is that the user is not really interested if the resource existed before or not. |
### Sudo
The following table shows the possible return codes for API requests.
| Return values | Description |
| ------------- | ----------- |
| `200 OK` | The `GET`, `PUT` or `DELETE` request was successful, the resource(s) itself is returned as JSON. |
| `204 No Content` | The server has successfully fulfilled the request and that there is no additional content to send in the response payload body. |
| `201 Created` | The `POST` request was successful and the resource is returned as JSON. |
| `304 Not Modified` | Indicates that the resource has not been modified since the last request. |
| `400 Bad Request` | A required attribute of the API request is missing, e.g., the title of an issue is not given. |
| `401 Unauthorized` | The user is not authenticated, a valid [user token](#authentication) is necessary. |
| `403 Forbidden` | The request is not allowed, e.g., the user is not allowed to delete a project. |
| `404 Not Found` | A resource could not be accessed, e.g., an ID for a resource could not be found. |
| `405 Method Not Allowed` | The request is not supported. |
| `409 Conflict` | A conflicting resource already exists, e.g., creating a project with a name that already exists. |
| `422 Unprocessable` | The entity could not be processed. |
| `500 Server Error` | While handling the request something went wrong server-side. |
## Sudo
> Needs admin permissions.
All API requests support performing an API call as if you were another user,
provided your private token is from an administrator account. You need to pass
...
...
@@ -221,13 +187,57 @@ GET /projects?private_token=9koXpg98eAheJpvBs5tK&sudo=23
API requests should be prefixed with `api` and the API version. The API version
is defined in [`lib/api.rb`][lib-api-url].
Example of a valid API request:
Impersonation Tokens are a type of Personal Access Token that can only be created by an admin for a specific user. These can be used by automated tools
to authenticate with the API as a specific user, as a better alternative to using the user's password or private token directly, which may change over time,
and to using the [Sudo](#sudo) feature, which requires the tool to know an admin's password or private token, which can change over time as well and are extremely powerful.
```shell
GET https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects?private_token=9koXpg98eAheJpvBs5tK
```
For more information about the usage please refer to the [Users](users.md) page
Example of a valid API request using cURL and authentication via header:
The API uses JSON to serialize data. You don't need to specify `.json` at the
end of an API URL.
## Status codes
The API is designed to return different status codes according to context and
action. This way, if a request results in an error, the caller is able to get
insight into what went wrong.
The following table gives an overview of how the API functions generally behave.
| Request type | Description |
| ------------ | ----------- |
| `GET` | Access one or more resources and return the result as JSON. |
| `POST` | Return `201 Created` if the resource is successfully created and return the newly created resource as JSON. |
| `GET` / `PUT` / `DELETE` | Return `200 OK` if the resource is accessed, modified or deleted successfully. The (modified) result is returned as JSON. |
| `DELETE` | Designed to be idempotent, meaning a request to a resource still returns `200 OK` even it was deleted before or is not available. The reasoning behind this, is that the user is not really interested if the resource existed before or not. |
The following table shows the possible return codes for API requests.
| Return values | Description |
| ------------- | ----------- |
| `200 OK` | The `GET`, `PUT` or `DELETE` request was successful, the resource(s) itself is returned as JSON. |
| `204 No Content` | The server has successfully fulfilled the request and that there is no additional content to send in the response payload body. |
| `201 Created` | The `POST` request was successful and the resource is returned as JSON. |
| `304 Not Modified` | Indicates that the resource has not been modified since the last request. |
| `400 Bad Request` | A required attribute of the API request is missing, e.g., the title of an issue is not given. |
| `401 Unauthorized` | The user is not authenticated, a valid [user token](#authentication) is necessary. |
| `403 Forbidden` | The request is not allowed, e.g., the user is not allowed to delete a project. |
| `404 Not Found` | A resource could not be accessed, e.g., an ID for a resource could not be found. |
| `405 Method Not Allowed` | The request is not supported. |
| `409 Conflict` | A conflicting resource already exists, e.g., creating a project with a name that already exists. |
| `422 Unprocessable` | The entity could not be processed. |
| `500 Server Error` | While handling the request something went wrong server-side. |
## Pagination
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@@ -398,3 +408,4 @@ programming languages. Visit the [GitLab website] for a complete list.