Getting Started

The Fivetran REST API allows you to programmatically manage your Fivetran account, groups, destinations, and connections, trigger syncs, and monitor status. This guide explains how to get access, send your first request, and identify which connectors support API access and their authorization methods.

REST API quickstart guide

This section covers the concepts and prerequisites for creating connections and other group-scoped resources using the API.

1. Set up authentication and access

To make a call to the API, you must authenticate with an API key. Use a scoped API key. It's tied to your Fivetran user account and inherits your RBAC permissions, so you can only access resources within your permission scope. Alternatively, use a service account API key, which uses a dedicated account for programmatic API access.

Once you have your key and secret, Base64-encode them to use in requests. For details on the request format and response structure Fivetran uses, see API request basics.

2. Set up a group and destination

A group is the top-level container in Fivetran. The following resources all require a group to exist before you can create them:

• Destinations
• Connections
• dbt transformation projects
• External logging configurations
• Hybrid deployment agents

Once a destination exists for a group, group_id, destination_id, and destination_group_id all refer to the same entity across API requests. See How Do Destinations and Groups Relate? for details.

If you don't have a group and destination yet:

1. Call POST /v1/groups to create a group. Note the id in the response — this is your group_id.
2. Call POST /v1/destinations using that group_id to add a destination to the group.

If you already have a destination, call GET /v1/destinations to find its group_id.

3. Find the connector service identifier

The service field in a connection request uses an internal connector identifier — for example, github or google_sheets — that may not match the connector's display name in the Fivetran dashboard. Use GET /v1/metadata/connectors to list all available connectors and their id values. The id is the value to use in the service field.

API reference examples and required fields

The API Reference shows all applicable fields and options for each resource type — for connections, destinations, and others. These are not minimal working requests — copy-pasting an example without replacing all placeholders and removing inapplicable fields will result in errors or unexpected behavior.

To create a connection, you must provide the following fields:

• group_id — the destination group where the connection will live. See step 2 above.
• service — the connector type identifier (for example, google_sheets). See step 3 above.
• config — the connector-specific credentials and connection parameters. For the full list of config fields per connector type, see the Create a Connection reference.

A request missing any of these fields returns a 400 Bad Request error.

Common terms

Also, explore the Fivetran REST API Postman collection to try requests quickly, and review webhooks for event-driven updates.

API request basics

Base URL

All API requests use this root URL:

https://api.fivetran.com/v1/

Request content type

The Fivetran REST API requires the Content-Type: application/json header on all POST and PATCH requests and the Accept: application/json header on all requests.

Example request

curl -X POST "https://api.fivetran.com/v1/groups" \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -u "api_key:api_secret" \
  -d '{"name":"Group_Name"}'

Response structure

Every response has the following format:

{
  "code": "Success",
  "message": "message",
  "data": {}
}

Example response

{
  "code": "Success",
  "message": "Group has been created",
  "data": {
    "id": "group_id",
    "name": "Group_Name",
    "created_at": "2025-01-01T00:00:00Z"
  }
}

Fields

Response codes

We respond with standard HTTP status codes during request processing. For the full list of supported HTTP status codes and Fivetran-specific code values, see our API response codes documentation.

Authorization methods for connectors

Authorization gives a connector permission to read from the source system (for example, Instagram, Salesforce, DB). Until you authorize the connector, it can’t fetch data even though you have successfully authenticated to the API.

You can authorize some connectors entirely by API, while others require a Connect Card flow. Support varies by connector.

• Connect Card - Redirect end users to an embeddable setup flow so they can authorize without sharing credentials with you. Use Connect Cards if you’re implementing a Powered by Fivetran workflow, or whenever obtaining end user credentials is difficult.

• API-based authorization - Provide credentials in the connection payload using one of these methods:

  • Define an auth section in the request body.
  • Provide the login and password fields.
  • Provide a token and any related fields.
  • Provide a key and any related fields.

  Use API-based authorization when you control the source credentials and want a fully automated setup (for example, in automated pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), or bulk provisioning of connections).

  Token-based auth example

  curl -X POST "https://api.fivetran.com/v1/connectors" \
  -u "$FIVETRAN_API_KEY:$FIVETRAN_API_SECRET" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "group_id": "YOUR_GROUP_ID",
    "service": "github",
    "config": {
      "token": "REPLACE_WITH_GITHUB_TOKEN",
      "schema": "schema_name"
    },
    "paused": false,
    "run_setup_tests": true
  }'
  

Refer to each connector’s API reference for the exact fields.

Related articles

API Tools

OpenAPI Definition and API Resources

Powered by Fivetran

Release Notes