Authentication with API keys

API keys are best used for scripts and simple integrations that are internal to your organization. If you need to register and authenticate a public application, see Authentication with OAuth instead.

Perform API calls with API key

API keys use HTTP Basic client side authentication. Basic authentication is a simple authentication scheme built into the HTTP protocol. To use it, send your HTTP requests with an Authorization header that contains the word Basic followed by a space and a base64-encoded string composed of an api key followed by a colon. The API key acts as the username and the password is always empty. API keys are per-organization and can be generated and deleted in the Settings page. See our API Keys FAQ for more information.

Example cURL request with an api key.

curl https://api.close.com/api/v1/me/ -u yourapikey:

Notice the ':' at the end of the api key. This is used because the key is sent as the username with a blank password.

GET /api/v1/me/ HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic eW91cmFwaWtleTo=
Host: api.close.com

This results in the header Authorization: Basic eW91cmFwaWtleTo= sent with the request as base64-encoded string yourapikey: is eW91cmFwaWtleTo=

API Base URL: https://api.close.com/api/v1