REST API Reference

Welcome to the Ably REST API Reference documentation.

The Ably REST API provides a way for a wide range of server and client devices to communicate with the Ably service over REST. The REST API does not provide a realtime long-lived connection to Ably, but in all other respects is a simple subset of the full realtime messaging API.

The primary use-case for the REST API is for servers that are part of the back-end of an application such as a web application, that publish messages, issue access tokens (temporary and client-specific) for its various clients, obtain message and presence history, and retrieve statistics.

The functional scope of the REST API includes:

• Authentication of the server with Ably, and creation of tokens for use by clients.
• Publication of messages
• Retrieval of message history
• Retrieval of presence state and presence
• Retrieval of statistics for application usage

Using the REST API directly is fully supported, Ably recommends that customers should use the Ably REST client libraries SDKs, that support a range of platforms, including the following examples:

• JavaScript
• iOS
• Android
• Java
• Python
• Ruby
• .NET
• Go

The Ably client libraries SDKs are documented, and provide additional features that improve performance and resilience that the REST API cannot deliver on its own, such as automatic re-routing around network problems by using alternative datacenters.

You can also use the Rest#request() method to make arbitrary API calls against Ably, to use endpoints that libraries do not yet have built-in support for.

Common API behavior

General

The REST API defaults to returning results, and expects request bodies, in JSON format. An Accept header is used to specify a specific response format - JSON or an alternative - and the following formats are allowed:

• application/json: JSON;
• application/javascript: for JSONP. A callback query parameter is also expected, which defaults simply to "callback";
• application/x-msgpack: for MessagePack, the efficient binary serialization format that is similar to JSON, but faster and smaller;
• text/html: HTML

It is also possible to specify the response format with the format query parameter (with supported values being json, jsonp, msgpack, html). Any Accept header takes precedence over a format parameter.

Similarly, POST requests may contain a request body in JSON or other formats as indicated by a Content-Type header. The supported content types are:

• application/json: JSON;
• application/x-msgpack: MessagePack, the efficient binary serialization format that is similar to JSON, but faster and smaller;
• application/x-www-form-urlencoded: Form-encoded.

Specific request and response data types are documented in the context of each API or route.

A response status code of 20X (200, 201 or 204) indicates success. A successful result will typically provide a response body but certain operations (such as DELETE) may respond with a 204 response and no response body.

All other standard HTTP statusCodes signify an error. Errors from all APIs are returned as an object of the form:

{
  error: {
    code: <ably error code>,
    message: <string>,
    statusCode: <http status code>
  }
}

Additionally, when you may not have access to the response body due to limitations of your HTTP client, we include the following custom Ably headers to work around that problem:

X-Ably-ErrorCode: <ably error code, equivalent to error.code>
X-Ably-ErrorMessage: <string, equivalent to error.message>

The properties of an Ably error are:

Wherever possible, success response bodies contain links, in HATEOS style, to other resources relevant to the response; where these are present these are included as href attributes on the applicable part of the response object.

GET, PUT, POST and DELETE are available in all contexts where they make sense. GET is always idempotent.

Versioning

By default, all requests receive the latest version of the API, which is currently 1.1.

When we make backwards-incompatible API changes to the API, we release new versions. Therefore, we encourage you to explicitly request the version you are interfacing with in all requests using one of the following mechanisms:

1. Include the X-Ably-Version header. Example:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/time \
 -H "X-Ably-Version: 1.2"

2. Include the version query string param v. Example:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/time?v=1.2

Pagination

REST APIs whose responses may have unbounded size have paginated responses; that is, if a full response to the query could exceed a limit (a default or a limit given as a parameter to the call) the first response contains a subset of the results, and further "pages" of the result are available on subsequent requests. Each response (the initial response and responses to each subsequent request) is accompanied by one or more relative links relating to the current query.

Responses contain one or more of the following relative links:

Relative links are presented by default as an RFC 5988 Link HTTP response header; there is a separate Link header for each relative link accompanying the response. The rel types used are first, next and current as specified in the RFC.

A Link header has the format:

Link: <{url}>; rel="{rel}"

where {url} is the URL of the link and {rel} is the relation type.

For example:

Link: <./stats?start=1380794880000&end=1380794881058&limit=100&unit=minute&direction=forwards
&format=json&first_start=1380794880000>; rel="first"

In principle the link URL might be any valid URL but in practice it will always be a relative URL, and it must be interpreted relative to the original query URL. Clients should treat link URLs opaquely; in particular, params (such as first_start in the example above) may be undocumented and unsupported except where a client uses the link URL in its entirety.

Clients that are unable to process response headers may also request an envelope response type.

Control of response content

By default the response body of a query response will contain the requested resource, encoded in the requested format. However, there are also query params that allow the response body to be adjusted to contain only a subset of the representation, or a restructured representation.

The following params are supported:

fields

Specifying ?fields=<field spec>[,<field spec>, ...] returns the representation containing only the specified fields. A field spec is a specifier which is either a single field - in which case the representation contains only that fields's value - or a dot-separated sequence of fields, in which case the representation contains only the fields matching those given in the field spec at each level in the hierarchy.

Example

  curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/stats?fields=channels.peak,intervalId \
       -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

  # Response
  [{
      "channels": { "peak": 2 },
      "intervalId": "2015-11-20:15"
  }]

flatten

Specifying ?flatten=true will result in a flattened representation, with the returned object structure being flattened into one with a single level of long keys instead of a deep structure. When the results contain array elements, the array index of each element is included as the corresponding component of the result key.

Example

  curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/stats?flatten=true&fields=channels.peak,intervalId \
       -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

  # Response
  {
      "0.channels.peak": 2,
      "0.intervalId": "2015-11-20:15"
  }

select

Specifying ?select=<path spec> returns a representation of the resource containing only the fields that match the given path specification. Like the fields param this permits only specific fields to be obtained, but the path spec may contain wildcard elements, and all matching fields in the representation are returned.

The result is a partially-flattened representation, as a map whose keys are the long keys that match the path spec, and the values are the corresponding values. When the results contain array elements, the array index of each element is included as the corresponding component of the result key.

Example

  curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/stats?select=*.channels.* \
       -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

  # Response
  [{
      "0.channels.peak": 5,
      "0.channels.min": 1,
      "0.channels.mean": 3,
      "0.channels.opened": 2
  }]

Envelope response format

A client that is unable to access response headers or status code can request an envelope response that contains the usual response, plus Link header information and the response status code wrapped in an object as a single response body. This is useful for JSONP and may be useful in other environments. Envelope responses are only supported for JSON, JSONP and HTML formats.

A client requests an envelope response by including an envelope=<format> param in the request.

A JSON envelope response body response for a request with an envelope=json param has the format:

  {
      "statusCode": <status code>,
      "response": <result of API call>,
      "rel": {
          "first": <URL>,
          ...
      }
  }

where the response member references the API result in the usual format. The rel member, present only in paginated responses, includes each of the rel links associated with the response.

Envelope responses always are always made with a 200 status code; the status of the API request itself must be obtained from the statusCode member of the response body.

Authentication

To understand the REST API it is easiest first to understand the various authentication methods that Ably supports. For a detailed explanation, view the Authentication documentation.

Clients can access Ably, whether using REST or the Realtime service, by two methods:

1. Basic authentication
2. Token authentication

Each of these is explained in more detail in the following sections.

Basic Authentication

Using one of the application keys created via the application dashboard, basic authentication provides the simplest method to authenticate with Ably, but has two important limitations:

• the application key is transmitted over the network as part of a request; therefore it may only be used over TLS (HTTPS or "SSL") connections. This can be a performance disadvantage in some network environments where long round-trip times are amplified by the SSL handshake.
• the client using the API must be in possession of the application key, which potentially exposes the key to compromise. For example, it is not advisable to simply embed the key in a script in a public web page.

Usage in HTTP request header

Authorization: Basic <Base64-encoded key>

where <Base64-encoded key> is the full application key string obtained through the dashboard, encoded with RFC 4648 Base64.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/rest-example/messages \
 --header "Authorization: Basic {'{{API_KEY_BASE64}}'}"

When using a generic HTTP client library that accepts separate username and password arguments for an HTTP request, the application key can be split at the first colon, with the initial segment being used as the username, and the remaining string (without the leading colon) used as the password.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/rest-example/messages \
 --user "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Token Authentication

Token Authentication uses an Ably-compatible token to authenticate with Ably without sharing a private API key. This can be an Ably Token obtained via the REST API requestToken endpoint, an Ably JWT signed by your API key, or an External JWT object with an embedded Ably-compatible token. Tokens are authentication credentials that are short-lived, and therefore they may more readily be distributed to clients where there is a risk of compromise. Tokens may also be issued with a particular scope - such as a limited set of access rights or capabilities or being limited to use by a specific clientId identity - and therefore token-based authentication provides the flexibility to implement access and identity control policies in the application. See the Token Authentication documentation for more details.

The construction of an Ably TokenRequest is described in the Authentication Ably TokenRequest spec documentation. The resulting token response object contains the token properties as defined in Ably TokenRequest spec.

Usage in HTTP request header

Authorization: Bearer <Base64-encoded token string>

The <Base64-encoded token string> is either the token attribute of the Ably Token generated by requestToken encoded with RFC 4648 Base64, or an Ably JWT. If using a generic HTTP client library it will probably be necessary to add the Authorization header explicitly.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/rest-example/messages \
 --header "Authorization: Bearer {'{{TOKEN_BASE64}}'}"

Channel routes

Routes providing access to the messaging service within a channel scope.

Publish one or more messages on a channel

POST main.realtime.ably.net/channels/{channelId}/messages

Publish a message on a channel. Note that since the REST API is stateless, publication using this API is outside the context of any specific connection.

The request body contains message details and is an object of the form:

{
  data: <optional message payload>,
  name: <optional event name>,
  encoding: <optional encoding>,
  clientId: <optional explicit client identifier>,
  connectionKey: <optional private connection key>,
  id: <optional message ID, see below>,
  extras: <optional, see below>
}

In JSON format, the accepted types for the data payload are:

• string
• any JSON-encodable Array or Object.

MessagePack additionally supports byte arrays

A message may be published over REST on behalf of an existing realtime connection when a valid connectionKey is present. For example, if you want to publish a message using the REST API so that it appears to come from an existing connected realtime client, then the connection's private (secret) connection key must be included.

Example request:

curl -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/rest-example/messages \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""} \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data '{ "name": "publish", "data": "example" }'

If you're wanting to publish a message idempotently (multiple publishes of the same message are not duplicated), you should set the id to be unique between each message. Only the first message received by Ably with a specific id will then be sent to a channel and its subscribers.

If you wish to publish a message to multiple channels at once, you should consider using our batch publish functionality.

Idempotent publishing

It is possible for a client publishing through REST to not receive an acknowledgement of receipt from Ably for numerous reasons such as network failures outside of our control. In this scenario, you will likely wish to re-publish the message, but not risk duplicating it within the network. This is possible through the addition of an id in the body of your POST, where the id should uniquely identify the message.

Message extras

Messages can include an optional extras field, used by extensions to Ably's core realtime service. For example, extras.ephemeral can be set to true to make an ephemeral publish.

Send push notification

You can send a push notification to devices subscribed to a channel by setting the push field in the extras object, like this:

{
  <... message fields ...>
  extras: {
    push: {
      data: <arbitrary key-value string-to-string payload>,
      notification: {
        title: <string, title to display at the notification>,
        body: <string, text below title on the expanded notification>,
        icon: <string, platform-specific>,
        sound: <string, platform-specific>,
        collapseKey: <string, platform-specific, used to group notifications together>
      }
      apns: <optional, extends and overrides generic values when delivering via APNs>,
      fcm: <optional, extends and overrides generic values when delivering via FCM>,
      web: <optional, extends and overrides generic values when delivering via web>,
    }
  }
}

For each underlying transport service (like APNs, FCM, etc.) an object can be provided with the same shape as the parent object, plus any transport-specific field you may want to add (e. g. content-available for APNs).

Full example of a request publishing a message with a push payload:

curl -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/push-enabled:rest-example/messages \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""} \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data \
 '
{
  "name": "some event name for realtime receivers",
  "data": "example non-push data for realtime receivers",
  "extras": {
    "push": {
      "notification": {
        "title": "Hello from Ably!",
        "body": "Example push notification from Ably."
      },
      "data": {
        "foo": "bar",
        "baz": "qux"
      },
      "apns": {
        "notification": {
          "content-available": 1,
          "sound": "ably-ios.wav"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
'

Parameters

Options

Returns

When successful, returns status code 201 and an object with channel and messageId properties, in case you want to know the message ID assigned to correlate with messages received by realtime subscribers or Ably Integration recipients. When unsuccessful, returns an error as an ErrorInfo object.

Unenveloped publish

If the enveloped parameter is present and set to false, the request body is interpreted as the data payload for a message to be published, rather than (as it would normally be) as a Message object or array of Message objects. This can be useful if, for example, you want an Ably publish to be triggered by a webhook from some third-party service where you cannot control the format of the request body.

Example json request:

curl -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/rest-example/messages?enveloped=false \
-H 'content-type: application/json' --data '{"some":"json"}' \
-u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Example plain text request:

curl -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/rest-example/messages?enveloped=false \
-H 'content-type: text/plain' --data 'some plain text' \
-u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Headers and parameters

Options

Returns

When successful, returns an object with channel and messageId properties, in case you want to know the message ID assigned to correlate with messages received by realtime subscribers or integrations recipients. When unsuccessful, returns an error as an ErrorInfo object.

Retrieve message history for a channel

GET main.realtime.ably.net/channels/{channelId}/messages

If a channel is configured to persist messages, then all messages on that channel, within your account retention period, are available via this API endpoint. If persistence is not configured, then there are no guarantees as to how many historical messages will be available for the channel. Find out more about message persistence.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/rest-example/messages \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

Options

Returns

In each case a successful result is a paginated response with an array containing the items that match the query (and it may be empty).

[{
  id: <unique message id>
  name: <event name>,
  data: <message payload>,
  timestamp: <message timestamp in ms since epoch>
}]

Retrieve metadata for a channel

GET rest.ably.io/channels/{channelId}

This returns a ChannelDetails for the given channel, indicating global occupancy. A side-effect of this request, in the current version of this API, is that it will cause the channel in question to become activated; therefore it is primarily intended to be used in conjunction with the enumeration API or in situations where the application has another means to know whether or not a given channel is active.

Enumerate all active channels

GET rest.ably.io/channels

This enumerates all active channels in the application. This is a paginated API following the same API conventions as other paginated APIs in the REST interface.

Publish annotations for a message

POST rest.ably.io/channels/{channelId}/messages/{messageSerial}/annotations

Publish one or more annotations for a specific message identified by its serial in the messageSerial url param. All annotations in a single request are published atomically and must be for the same message.

See our main annotation docs for more information on annotations.

The request body contains an array of annotation objects:

[{
  action: <number; 0 is create, 1 is delete>,
  type: <string, specifies how this annotation should be aggregated>,
  name: <optional string, arbitrary string that many aggregation types use to group by>,
  count: <optional number, used with the 'multiple' aggregation type>,
  id: <optional string, client-specified idempotency key>,
  clientId: <optional string, explicit client identifier>,
  data: <optional JSON-encodable data>,
  encoding: <optional string, encoding if specifying manually>,
  extras: <optional extras object>
}]

In JSON format, the accepted types for the data payload are:

• string
• any JSON-encodable Array or Object.

MessagePack additionally supports byte arrays

For annotation types and aggregation details, see annotation types.

The message extras object is the same as for a message publish, see message extras.

The id is the same as for a message publish, see idempotent publishing

Example request:

curl -X POST https://rest.ably.io/channels/mutable:channel/messages/01726585978590-001@abcdefghij:001/annotations \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}  \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data '[{ "action": 0, "type": "reaction:distinct.v1", "name": ":thumbsup:" }]'

Parameters

None

Options

Returns

When successful, returns status code 201 and an object with annotation details. When unsuccessful, returns an error as an ErrorInfo object.

Retrieve all annotations for a message

GET rest.ably.io/channels/{channelId}/messages/{messageSerial}/annotations

Retrieve all annotations that have been published for a specific message identified by its serial, starting from the earliest.

Example request:

curl https://rest.ably.io/channels/rest-example/messages/01726585978590-001@abcdefghij:001/annotations?limit=100 \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

Options

Returns

A successful request returns a paginated response with an array containing the annotations for the specified message, starting from the first one to have been published for that message. If there are no annotations, an empty collection is returned.

[{
  action: <number; 0 for create, 1 for delete>,
  serial: <unique serial of this annotation>,
  id: <idempotency key>,
  timestamp: <annotation timestamp in ms since epoch>
  messageSerial: <the serial of the message that is being annotated>
  type: <annotation type>,
  name: <optional string>,
  count: <optional number>,
  clientId: <optional client identifier>,
  data: <optional annotation payload>,
  encoding: <optional encoding of the payload>,
  extras: <optional extras object>,
}]

Retrieve instantaneous presence status for a channel

GET main.realtime.ably.net/channels/{channelId}/presence

Obtain the set of members currently present for a channel.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/rest-example/presence \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

Options

Returns

A successful request returns a paginated response with an array containing the members that are currently present on the given channel. If there are no members present, an empty collection is returned.

[{
  id: <a unique member identifier generated by Ably>,
  clientId: <member client id provided by the client>,
  connectionId: <a unique connection id generated by Ably>
  timestamp: <message timestamp in ms since epoch>
  action: <presence state>,
  data: <optional clientData provided by the client>
}]

Retrieve presence state history for a channel

GET main.realtime.ably.net/channels/{channelId}/presence/history

Obtain the history of presence messages for a channel.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/rest-example/presence/history \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

Options

Returns

A successful request returns a paginated response with an array containing the members that are currently present on the given channel. If there are no members present, an empty collection is returned.

[{
  id: <a unique member identifier generated by Ably>,
  clientId: <member client id provided by the client>,
  connectionId: <a unique connection id generated by Ably>
  timestamp: <message timestamp in ms since epoch>
  action: <presence state>,
  data: <optional clientData provided by the client>
}]

Retrieve metadata for a channel

This returns a ChannelDetails for the given channel, indicating global occupancy. A side-effect of this request, in the current version of this API, is that it will cause the channel in question to become activated; therefore it is primarily intended to be used in conjunction with the enumeration API or in situations where the application has another means to know whether or not a given channel is active.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels/\{channelId\} \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

The credentials presented with the request must include the channel-metadata permission for the channel in question.

Client libraries currently do not support this API, but it is usable via the generic request API.

Enumerate all active channels

This enumerates all active channels in the application. This is a paginated API following the same API conventions as other paginated APIs in the REST interface.

This API is intended for occasional use by your servers only; for example, to get an initial set of active channels to be kept up to date using the channel lifecycle metachannel. It is heavily rate-limited: only a single in-flight channel enumeration call is permitted to execute at any one time. Further concurrent calls will be refused with an error with code 42912.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/channels \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"

This will return either a list of channel names, or a ChannelDetails object depending on what options you've specified.

The following parameters are supported:

The credentials presented with the request must include the channel-metadata permission for the wildcard resource '*'.

Client libraries do not provide a dedicated API to enumerate channels, but make this available using the request method. When using this, you can simply iterate through the PaginatedResults to enumerate through the results.

Enumeration is possible of all channels in an app, by repeated calls to the API, following the next relative link on each successive call, until there is no next relative link. However, this is subject to several limitations:

• Channels that become active, or become inactive, between the first and last request in the sequence, might or might not appear in the result. The API guarantees that if a channel is continuously active from the time that the first request is made until the time that the last request completes, then it is guaranteed to be present in the result. Similarly, if a channel is continuously inactive between those times then it is guaranteed not to be present in the result;
• Since the state of the cluster may change between successive calls, a pagination sequence may become invalid, in which case the request will respond with an error with code 40011. In this case, to get a complete result, it is necessary to start the enumeration again from the beginning. Other API options to deal with this possibility maybe provided in later versions of this API. Enumerations that are satisfiable in the first response page do not have this issue.
• The API does not guarantee that the limit will be achieved even if that would be possible. For example, if you specify a limit of 100, the API may return only 37 results together with a next link to get the next page, even if you have more than 37 channels. In the extreme case, the API may return 0 results with a next link. In particular this may be the case if you have a large number of active channels but are specifying a prefix that excludes a significant proportion of them.
• The API does not guarantee that there will be no duplicated results between different pages, especially if a channel is alive in multiple regions. (It does not currently do so, but it may begin to do so with no warning or deprecation period, so your implementation should be able to cope with duplication)
• If you use by=value (which until protocol v3 was the default), just enumerating channels can briefly keep them alive, meaning if you do very regular enumeration you can get a situation where channels never close.

Push

Register a device for receiving push notifications

Before registering a device to receive push notifications, ensure it has a deviceId and a deviceSecret. If these are missing, follow these steps to generate them:

1. Generate the deviceId using a UUID (universally unique identifier) or GUID (globally unique identifier).
2. Generate the deviceSecret using secure random data. The deviceSecret should have sufficient entropy to allow for the creation of a digest using the SHA-256 algorithm. Encode the resultant hash in Base64.

After generating these, update your local DeviceDetails object with the new deviceId and deviceSecret. If you ever lose either, you must generate a new pair.

The following API endpoint provided is used to register a device for receiving push notifications:

POST main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations

The request body contains device and push recipient details, and is an object of the form:

{
  id: <string>,
  clientId: <optional, string, client identifier to associate with registration>,
  platform: <string, one of ios, android or browser>,
  formFactor: <string, one of phone, tablet, desktop, tv, watch, car or embedded>,
  metadata: <optional, object, with flexible key/value string pairs>,
  push: {
    recipient: {
      transportType: <string, one of fcm, apns, or web>,
      <additional key/value string pairs for transport-specific recipient address>
    }
  }
}

The recipient address attributes are necessary and vary by underlying transport service.

For APNs:

{
  deviceToken: <string>
}

For FCM:

{
  registrationToken: <string>
}

For web:

{
  targetUrl: <string>,
  publicVapidKey: <string>,
  encryptionKey: {
    p256dh: <string>,
    auth: <string>
  }
}

Example request:

curl -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data \
'{
  "id": "01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV",
  "platform": "ios",
  "formFactor": "phone",
  "push": {
    "recipient": {
      "transportType": "apns",
      "deviceToken": "740f4707bebcf74f9b7c25d48e3358945f6aa01da5ddb387462c7eaf61bb78ad"
    }
  }
}'

Parameters

None

Options

A successful request returns the just-registered device details. It includes an updateToken, which is a token that can be used by typically a mobile device to authenticate with Ably later and update an existing device registration (for example, for updating a FCM registration token).

An unsuccessful request returns an error.

Update a device registration

Device registrations can be either upserted (the existing registration is replaced entirely) with a PUT operation, or specific attributes of an existing registration can be updated using a PATCH operation:

PUT main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations/{deviceId}

The body must have the same shape as when registering the device. The PUT operation will replace the existing device registration, however please bear in mind that a registered device in Ably is largely immutable. As such, only the following attributes are currently updatable and any attempt to modify other fields will result in the update failing:

• clientId
• metadata
• push.recipient

Additionally, if the push.state or updateToken attributes are provided, they will be accepted if they match the existing value. However if they differ (and are not null or omitted), then the update will fail.

If you need to make changes to any other fields, you will have to deregister the existing device and then register a new one.

Example request:

curl -X PUT https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations/01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data \
'{
  "id": "01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV",
  "platform": "ios",
  "formFactor": "phone",
  "metadata": {
    "timezone": "PST"
  },
  "push": {
    "recipient": {
      "transportType": "apns",
      "deviceToken": "740f4707bebcf74f9b7c25d48e3358945f6aa01da5ddb387462c7eaf61bb78ad"
    }
  }
}'

Parameters

None

Options

A successful request returns the updated device details.

An unsuccessful request returns an error.

PATCH main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations/{deviceId}

The body must have the same shape as when registering the device, except only fields to be changed should be provided. Any fields provided replace existing values. Please bear in mind that fields whose values are structured (JSON-like arrays or objects) types will replace existing values as opposed to be merged into existing values. metadata and push.recipient are examples of these types. Currently only the following attributes are currently updatable and any attempt to modify other fields will result in the update failing:

• clientId (this field is only editable with a push-admin capability)
• metadata (this field is only editable with a push-admin capability)
• push.recipient

If you need to make changes to any other fields, you will have to deregister the existing device and then register a new one.

Example request:

curl -X PATCH https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations/01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data \
'{
  "metadata": {
    "myKey": "value"
  }
 }'

Parameters

None

Options

A successful request returns the updated device details.

An unsuccessful request returns an error.

Get details from a registered device

GET main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations/{deviceId}

Obtain the details for a device registered for receiving push registrations.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations/01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

None.

Options

Returns

A JSON object like:

{
  id: <string>,
  clientId: <optional, string>
  platform: <string>
  formFactor: <string>,
  metadata: <object>,
  updateToken: <string>,
  push: {
    recipient: {
      transportType: <string>,
      <additional recipient address key/value pairs>
    },
    state: <active or failed>,
    error: {
      code: <string>,
      statusCode: <string>,
      message: <string>
    }
  }
}

or a 404 error if a device by that ID does not exist.

If Ably could not register the device on behalf of the push notifications provider, then push.error contains the relevant error information.

List registered devices

GET main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations

Obtain the details for devices registered for receiving push registrations.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

Options

Returns

A successful request returns a paginated response of:

[{
  id: <string>,
  clientId: <optional, string>
  platform: <string>
  formFactor: <string>,
  metadata: <object>,
  updateToken: <string>,
  push: {
    recipient: {
      transportType: <string>,
      <additional recipient address key/value pairs>
    },
    state: <active or failed>
  }
}]

Reset a registered device's update token

POST main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations/{deviceId}/resetUpdateToken

Example request:

curl -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV/resetUpdateToken \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

None

Options

A successful request returns the updated device details.

A unsuccessful request returns an error.

Unregister a single device for push notifications

DELETE main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations/{deviceId}

Unregisters a single device by its device ID. All its subscriptions for receiving push notifications through channels will also be deleted.

Please note that this operation is done asynchronously so immediate requests subsequent to this delete request may briefly still return the device.

Example request:

curl -X DELETE \
 https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations/01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

None

Options

Returns

A successful request returns an empty response.

An unsuccessful request returns an error.

Unregister matching devices for push notifications

DELETE main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations

Unregisters devices. All their subscriptions for receiving push notifications through channels will also be deleted.

Please note that this operation is done asynchronously so immediate requests subsequent to this delete request may briefly still return the device.

Example request:

curl -X DELETE \
 https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/deviceRegistrations?deviceId=01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

Options

Returns

A successful request returns an empty response.

An unsuccessful request returns an error.

Subscribe to a channel

Subscribe either a single device or all devices associated with a client ID to receive push notifications from messages sent to a channel.

POST main.realtime.ably.net/push/channelSubscriptions

The request body contains subscription details and is an object of the form:

{
  channel: <string>,
  deviceId: <optional, string, must be set when clientId is empty, cannot be used with clientId>,
  clientId: <optional, string, must be set when deviceId is empty, cannot be used with deviceId>
}

curl -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/channelSubscriptions \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data \
 '
{
  "channel": "rest-example",
  "deviceId": "01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV"
}
'

Parameters

None

Options

A successful request returns an empty object.

A unsuccessful request returns an error.

Unsubscribe from push notifications for channels

DELETE main.realtime.ably.net/push/channelSubscriptions

Stop receiving push notifications when push messages are published on the specified channels.

Please note that this operation is done asynchronously so immediate requests subsequent to this delete request may briefly still return the subscription.

Example request:

curl -X DELETE \
 https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/channelSubscriptions?deviceId=01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

Options

Returns

A successful request returns an empty response.

An unsuccessful request returns an error.

List channel subscriptions

GET main.realtime.ably.net/push/channelSubscriptions

Get a list of push notification subscriptions to channels.

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/channelSubscriptions \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

Options

Returns

A successful request returns a paginated response of:

[{
  channel: <string>,
  clientId: <string, only present when deviceId is not present>
  deviceId: <string, only present when clientId is not present>,
}]

List all channels with at least one subscribed device

GET main.realtime.ably.net/push/channels

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/channels \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

Parameters

None

Options

Returns

A successful request returns a paginated response of:

[<string, channel name>]

Publish directly to specific recipients

Convenience endpoint to deliver a push notification payload to a single device or set of devices identified by their client identifier.

If you want to send a push notification to subscribed clients without knowing about recipient devices' details, we recommend you look at registering devices for push, then subscribe them to channels, and then send messages to the channels with push payloads.

This direct publish endpoint is designed for use cases where there is a need to push directly to specified recipients, for example where the population of relevant devices is managed outside of Ably, or where it is not appropriate to create a durable association between the device and a channel or topic.

POST main.realtime.ably.net/push/publish

The request body is an object of the form:

{
  recipient: <object>
  <... rest of the fields just like a normal push-enabled message's extras.push object ...>
}

Example request:

curl -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/publish \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""} \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data \
 '
{
  "recipient": {
    "clientId": "myClientId"
  },
  "notification": {
    "title": "Hello from Ably!",
    "body": "Example push notification from Ably."
  },
  "data": {
    "foo": "bar",
    "baz": "qux"
  }
}'

The recipient field supports delivering either to devices registered to Ably by device ID, by their associated client ID, or directly to devices using the underlying notifications service (FCM, APNs, etc.), thus bypassing registrations to Ably altogether.

By device ID:

{
  deviceId: <string>
}

By client ID:

{
  clientId: <string>
}

For APNs devices:

{
  transportType: "apns",
  deviceToken: <string>
}

For FCM devices:

{
  transportType: <fcm>,
  registrationToken: <string>
}

For web:

{
  transportType: "web",
  targetUrl: <string>,
  publicVapidKey: <string>,
  encryptionKey: {
    p256dh: <string>,
    auth: <string>
  }
}

The rest of the fields are normal push-enabled Ably message's push.extras object.

Parameters

None

Options

A successful request returns an empty response.

An unsuccessful request returns an error.

Batch publish directly to specific recipients

Convenience endpoint to deliver multiple push notification payloads to multiple devices or browsers in a single request by specifying a list of recipients and corresponding payloads. Currently, the batch push endpoint allows a maximum of 10,000 notifications per request. Note that each recipient for a given payload counts as a separate notification.

POST main.realtime.ably.net/push/batch/publish

The request body is an array of objects of the form:

{
  recipient: <recipient object or array of recipient objects>
  payload: <object>
}

Where the recipient and payload fields are the same as those used in the Publish a push notification to a single device endpoint.

Example request:

curl -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/push/admin/batch/publish \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""} \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data \
 '
[
  {
    "recipient": {
      "deviceId": "01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV"
    },
    "payload": {
      "notification": {
        "title": "Message 1",
        "body": "Example push notification from Ably."
      }
    }
  },
  {
    "recipient": {
      "clientId": "myClientId"
    },
    "payload": {
      "notification": {
        "title": "Message 2",
        "body": "Example push notification from Ably."
      }
    }
  }
]
'

Authentication

Request an access token

POST main.realtime.ably.net/keys/{keyName}/requestToken

This is the means by which clients obtain access tokens to use the service. The construction of an Ably TokenRequest is described in the Authentication Ably TokenRequest spec documentation. The resulting token response object contains the token properties as defined in Ably TokenRequest spec.

Example request:

curl -X POST "https://main.realtime.ably.net/keys/{'{{API_KEY_NAME}}'}/requestToken" \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""} \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data '{ "keyName": "{'{{API_KEY_NAME}}'}", "timestamp": {'{{MS_SINCE_EPOCH}}'} }'

Parameters

None

Options

Returns

A successful request will return a token details object containing the token string.

{
  "token": "xVLyHw.CLchevH3hF....MDh9ZC_Q", // token string
  "keyName": "xVLyHw.mDYnFA",
  "issued": 1428356667,
  "expires": 1428360267,
  "capability": "{\"*\":[\"*\"]}"
}

Revoke tokens

POST main.realtime.ably.net/keys/{keyName}/revokeTokens

Provides a mechanism to revoke tokens, where keyName is appId.keyId.

Example request:

curl -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""} -X POST https://main.realtime.ably.net/keys/{'{{API_KEY_NAME}}'}/revokeTokens \
    --header "Accept: application/json" \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data '{"targets": [ "clientId:[email protected]" ]}'

Parameters

None

Options

The request body has the following properties:

Returns

A successful request returns status 201. An example response body is as follows:

[
	{
		"target": "clientId:foo",
		"issuedBefore": 1636022994797,
		"appliesAt": 1636022994797
	},
	{
		"target": "clientId:bar",
		"issuedBefore": 1636022994797,
		"appliesAt": 1636022994797
	}
]

In the response, appliesAt is the time the revocation will take effect. This is the current time by default, or about 30s in the future if you specify allowReauthMargin in the request.

The response is comparable to that of Batch publish. If some tokens can be revoked, and some can't, you receive a batch partial response.

See also

See the token revocation documentation for further details.

Application routes

Routes providing access to the messaging service within an application scope.

Retrieve usage statistics for an application

GET main.realtime.ably.net/stats

Example request:

curl https://main.realtime.ably.net/stats?unit=hour \
 -u "{'demokey:*****'}"{""}

The Ably system can be queried to obtain usage statistics for a given application, and results are provided aggregated across all channels in use in the application in the specified period. Stats may be used to track usage against account quotas.

Stats queries are made by specifying a query interval and the granularity expected in the results. The query interval is expressed as a start and end time, each being a timestamp in milliseconds since the epoch. Stats are aggregated by the system in 'sub-minute' intervals of 6s (ie 0.1m), so query interval start and end times are rounded down to the nearest sub-minute boundary.

Parameters

Options

Returns

In each case a successful result is a paginated response with an array containing the items that match the query (and it may be empty).

Stats records contain a hierarchy of elements relating to messages, connections and other resources consumed in an interval. Any single record may contain a subset of the elements, omitting empty sections.

See a complete example of a statistics response.

Batch

Batch mode enables you to submit multiple API requests for certain operations in a single API call. The API processes all the requests in parallel.

Batch publish

POST main.realtime.ably.net/messages

Using this endpoint, you can publish messages to channels in parallel, by passing either a single BatchSpec object or an array of BatchSpec objects in the request body.

A single BatchSpec is an object of the form:

{
  channels: <channel names>,
  messages: <messages>
}

• <channel names> is a single channel name, or an array of up to 100 channel names, expressed as strings.
• <messages> is a single message, or an array of up to 1000 messages.

The maximum size of each request body must be less than 2MiB and the total size of all messages in a messages array must be less than the message size limit (64kiB by default for paid accounts, 16kiB for free accounts).

Sample request, containing multiple BatchSpec objects in an array:

[
  {
    channels: ['channel1', 'channel2'],
    messages: {data: 'My message'}
  },
  {
    channels: 'channel3',
    messages: [
      {data: 'My message'},
      {name: 'An event', data: 'My event message contents'},
    ]
  }
]

Parameters

None

Options

Returns

Success: When the request is successful, the operation returns HTTP status 200 and an array of objects with channel and messageId properties. For example, the following is returned if the sample request above completes successfully:

[
    {
        "channel": "channel1",
        "messageId": "ClDn4dPtUL:0"
    },
    {
        "channel": "channel2",
        "messageId": "3PodoYLYlR:0"
    },
    {
        "channel": "channel3",
        "messageId": "TMefwp6-lP:0"
    }
]

Failure: If the batch publish request itself fails, the response includes an ErrorInfo object.

Partial success: If the batch request itself succeeds, but one or more of the requests within the batch fails, then the response includes a top-level error property with a status code of 400 and an error code of 40020. The batchResponse object for the failed request includes the channel name and an ErrorInfo object that describes the error. The successful requests within the batch return a batchResponse object for each channel, together with the messageId of the published message.

Batch presence

GET main.realtime.ably.net/presence

This endpoint enables you to query the presence states of multiple channels in a single API request. The API retrieves the member presence details of the specified channels in parallel.

Parameters

Options

Returns

Success: When successful, the operation returns HTTP status 200 and an array of objects with channel and presence properties.

[
   {
      "channel":"channel1",
      "presence":[
         {
            "id":"JSjj6i27T0:0:0",
            "clientId":"bob",
            "connectionId":"JSjj6i27T0",
            "timestamp":1633985256512,
            "action":1
         }
      ]
   },
   {
      "channel":"channel2",
      "presence":[
         {
            "id":"JSjj6i27T0:1:0",
            "clientId":"bob",
            "connectionId":"JSjj6i27T0",
            "timestamp":1633985256517,
            "action":1
         }
      ]
   },
   {
      "channel":"channel3",
      "presence":[
         {
            "id":"JSjj6i27T0:2:0",
            "clientId":"bob",
            "connectionId":"JSjj6i27T0",
            "timestamp":1633985256517,
            "action":1
         }
      ]
   }
]

Each object in the presence array of each channel describes the presence state of one of that channel's members:

[{
  id: <a unique member identifier generated by Ably>,
  clientId: <member client id provided by the client>,
  connectionId: <a unique connection id generated by Ably>
  timestamp: <message timestamp in ms since epoch>
  action: <presence state>,
  data: <optional clientData provided by the client>
}]

Failure: If the batch request itself fails the response body contains an ErrorInfo object.

Partial success: If the batch request itself succeeds, but one or more of the requests within the batch fails, then the response for the failed request contains an error object with the error code 40020 and a status code of 400. Successful requests within the batch include a presence array that describes the presence state of each of the channel members.

Utilities

Get the service time

GET main.realtime.ably.net/time

This returns the service time in milliseconds since the epoch. This may be used by clients that do not have local access to a sufficiently accurate time source when generating an Ably TokenRequest. (Ably TokenRequests include a timestamp and have a limited validity period to help defend against replay attacks.)

The result is a JSON-encoded array of length 1 containing the time result as a number.

curl http://main.realtime.ably.net/time

Parameters

None

Options

Returns

[ {'{{MS_SINCE_EPOCH}}'} ]