yba-api

YugabyteDB Anywhere REST API

This skill covers the YBA control-plane REST API — the HTTP API exposed by a self-managed YugabyteDB Anywhere (YBA) instance for managing providers, releases, universes, backups, KMS, alerts, HA, RBAC, and DR.

It is not about:

• YugabyteDB Aeon — fully-managed cloud DBaaS, different API surface.
• YSQL / YCQL — the database APIs (PostgreSQL- and Cassandra-compatible) on ports 5433 / 9042.

Reference docs:

• Overview: https://docs.yugabyte.com/stable/yugabyte-platform/anywhere-automation/anywhere-api/
• Interactive reference: https://api-docs.yugabyte.com/docs/yugabyte-platform/f10502c9c9623-yugabyte-db-anywhere-api-overview
• v1 endpoint registry (Play routes): https://github.com/yugabyte/yugabyte-db/blob/master/managed/src/main/resources/v1.routes
• v2 OpenAPI spec: https://github.com/yugabyte/yugabyte-db/tree/master/managed/src/main/resources/openapi (entry point: paths/_index.yaml)

This skill includes:

• references/python-client.md — minimal Python wrapper (yba_request) plus splat-style usage. Read this when writing or generating Python code.
• references/powershell-client.md — standalone PowerShell wrapper (Invoke-YbaRequest, Get-YbaApiToken, Register-YbaInstance, Get-YbaCustomerId) that does not require the powershell-yba module. Read this when the user is on PowerShell or has no Python available.
• references/recipes.md — concrete request/response shapes for register/login, providers, releases, v1 and v2 universe creation (cloud and Kubernetes), storage configs (incl. multi-region S3 with HTTPS proxy), telemetry providers, universe health checks and alerts, runtime configuration at all scopes, backups/restore, and async tasks. Read this when crafting an unfamiliar request.
• references/prometheus.md — querying the Prometheus instance bundled with YBA on port 9090 for universe metrics (YCQL/YSQL ops/sec, latency histograms, container CPU/memory on Kubernetes, node-exporter CPU on cloud, tablet-leader balance, xCluster lag). Includes Python and PowerShell helpers and the node_prefix / pod-regex derivation from a universe API response. Read this when the user wants metrics, dashboards or charts.

v1 vs v2

YBA exposes two API versions side-by-side. Both are mounted under /api/ on the same host and share the same X-AUTH-YW-API-TOKEN header.

	v1 (/api/v1/...)	v2 (/api/v2/...)
Coverage	Comprehensive — every YBA capability is reachable here.	Partial and growing. Initially focused on universes, upgrades, RBAC, releases, telemetry.
Request/response models	Tightly coupled to internal Java/Play models — many optional fields, deep nesting, fields that the server fills in for you, deprecated artefacts.	Decoupled, hand-curated OpenAPI schemas — simpler, flatter shapes; what you send maps cleanly to what gets stored.
Definition source	managed/src/main/resources/v1.routes (Play routes file)	managed/src/main/resources/openapi/ (OpenAPI 3)
Versioning	Stable. Old endpoints are kept but may be marked deprecated.	Endpoints carry x-yba-api-visibility (preview, beta, stable, deprecated) and x-yba-api-since.
When to prefer	Anything not yet in v2 (most providers, KMS, HA, alerts, runtime config).	New universe creation/edit/upgrade flows where it exists — the payload is much smaller.

Default rule: prefer v2 if the endpoint exists; fall back to v1 for everything else. Both can be used in the same script and against the same token.

Authentication

All authenticated requests use a single header:

X-AUTH-YW-API-TOKEN: <api-token>
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json

There are three ways to obtain an API token. Pick the first one that applies.

1. Reuse a previously retrieved token

Tokens do not expire — they remain valid until explicitly rotated. If the user already has one, use it directly. Do not log it; treat it like a password. Common storage:

export YBA_URL=https://yba.example.com
export YBA_TOKEN=...        # never echo, never commit
export YBA_CUSTOMER_ID=...  # optional, can be looked up (see below)

2. Log in with email + password (existing instance)

POST /api/v1/api_login
{"email": "<email>", "password": "<password>"}

Returns:

{"apiToken": "...", "apiTokenVersion": 2, "customerUUID": "...", "userUUID": "..."}

Note that this rotates the API token — any token previously issued for this user becomes invalid. To rotate explicitly without logging in again, PUT /api/v1/customers/{cUUID}/api_token.

3. Register a brand-new instance

A newly provisioned YBA has no users. The first call must be:

POST /api/v1/register?generateApiToken=1
{"code": "dev|stg|prd", "name": "<full name>", "email": "<email>", "password": "<password>"}

This creates the first customer (tenant) and admin user, and returns the same {apiToken, customerUUID, userUUID, ...} shape as login. Subsequent registration attempts return cannot register multiple accounts — handle that by falling back to login.

Customer (tenant) ID

Almost every endpoint is scoped to a customer / tenant: /api/v1/customers/{cUUID}/.... YBA today is effectively single-tenant per instance, so this UUID is constant for the lifetime of the instance.

GET /api/v1/customers   →   [{"uuid": "...", "code": "...", "name": "..."}]

Look it up once and cache it for the session. The Python wrapper in references/python-client.md does this in a module-level dict keyed by base URL.

Async tasks

Many state-changing endpoints (create universe, edit universe, software upgrade, create provider, take backup, …) return immediately with a task handle:

{"taskUUID": "f3...", "resourceUUID": "..."}

Poll the task until it terminates:

GET /api/v1/customers/{cUUID}/tasks/{taskUUID}

The task is finished when one of these is true:

• percent == 100 → success
• status is one of Aborted, Failure → failed (read details.taskDetails[*] for the failed sub-step)

Recommended polling: every 5 to 10 seconds with an overall timeout of 10 minutes for most universe operations (longer for software upgrades or large backups). Treat the absence of a taskUUID field as a synchronous response — return it directly.

Endpoint discovery

Two authoritative sources, in this order:

1. Interactive reference at https://api-docs.yugabyte.com/docs/yugabyte-platform/ — readable, has request/response examples, lets you filter by tag.
2. Source of truth in the repo — use these when the docs are stale or you need an exact field name:
   • v1: search the v1.routes file for the resource (e.g. universes, providers, ybdb_release, customer_tasks). Each line is METHOD path controller.method(...).
   • v2: search openapi/paths/_index.yaml — entry point that includes per-resource path files. Schemas live under openapi/components/schemas/.

When asked to "use the YBA API to do X", grep the routes file for the resource name first rather than guessing.

Common parameters (cheat sheet)

These four travel together on every request. Every helper in the Python wrapper and every PowerShell function takes them as a unit.

Param	Notes
base_url	e.g. https://yba.example.com — no trailing /api.
api_token	Sent as X-AUTH-YW-API-TOKEN.
customer_id	Looked up once and cached per base_url.
verify_certificate	YBA installations on private CAs are common — be ready to set this to False. When false, also suppress urllib3 warnings.

Python: minimum-token usage

Keep request code tiny so the AI assistant spends tokens on the payload, not on plumbing. The full wrapper is in references/python-client.md; the irreducible minimum is:

import requests, time, urllib3

def yba_request(base_url, endpoint, token, *, customer_id=None, method="GET",
                payload=None, params=None, verify=True, wait=False, wait_timeout=600):
    if not verify: urllib3.disable_warnings()
    h = {"Accept": "application/json", "Content-Type": "application/json",
         "X-AUTH-YW-API-TOKEN": token}
    url = f"{base_url.rstrip('/')}/{endpoint.lstrip('/')}"
    r = requests.request(method, url, headers=h, json=payload, params=params,
                         timeout=30, verify=verify)
    r.raise_for_status()
    data = r.json()
    if not wait or "taskUUID" not in data or not customer_id:
        return data
    task_url = f"{base_url.rstrip('/')}/api/v1/customers/{customer_id}/tasks/{data['taskUUID']}"
    start = time.time()
    while time.time() - start < wait_timeout:
        t = requests.get(task_url, headers=h, timeout=5, verify=verify).json()
        if t.get("percent") == 100 or t.get("status") in ("Aborted", "Failure"):
            return t
        time.sleep(2)
    return t

Usage pattern (splat the connection args once, then forget them):

yba = dict(base_url="https://yba.example.com", token=TOKEN, verify=False)
customer_id = yba_request(**yba, endpoint="/api/v1/customers")[0]["uuid"]
yba["customer_id"] = customer_id

universes = yba_request(**yba, endpoint=f"/api/v1/customers/{customer_id}/universes")

Splatting lets the assistant write subsequent calls as one-liners — no repeated headers, no repeated URL building, no repeated cert handling.

Concrete recipes (provider create, release import, universe create, backup, task polling) are in references/recipes.md. Read that file before generating non-trivial payloads — many endpoints have non-obvious required fields.

PowerShell

When the user is working in PowerShell, use the standalone wrapper in references/powershell-client.md — Invoke-YbaRequest, Get-YbaApiToken, Register-YbaInstance, Get-YbaCustomerId. It is a single self-contained .ps1 block, requires only PowerShell 7+, and mirrors the Python wrapper's shape (splatted connection args, taskUUID polling via -Wait, customer-ID cache).

If the user already has the powershell-yba module installed, prefer its richer per-resource cmdlets (Get-YbaUniverse, New-YbaRelease, New-YbaKubernetesProvider, …) over raw Invoke-YbaRequest — they handle the v1 payload shaping that is otherwise tedious. Both surfaces accept -BaseUrl, -ApiToken (SecureString), -CustomerId, -SkipCertificateCheck so splatting is interchangeable.

Anti-patterns

Anti-Pattern	Consequence	Do Instead
Hard-coding customerUUID from another environment	403 / Invalid Customer UUID	Look it up once via GET /api/v1/customers and cache.
Treating the response of an async POST as the final result	Code thinks the universe exists immediately when in fact a task is still running and may fail	Detect taskUUID and poll /customers/{cUUID}/tasks/{taskUUID} until percent == 100 or status in (Aborted, Failure).
Calling POST /api_login on every request	Each login rotates the token, breaking concurrent scripts	Log in once, store the token, reuse it.
Sending a v1 universe payload to a v2 endpoint (or vice versa)	400 with cryptic schema error	Check the source: v1 in v1.routes, v2 in openapi/paths/. The shapes are not interchangeable.
Echoing or logging apiToken	Token leak — token does not expire on its own	Treat as a password; redact in WhatIf / dry-run output.
Skipping cert verification globally without saying so	Hidden MITM exposure	Require an explicit verify=False / -SkipCertificateCheck and surface that in any logging.
Ignoring the error field in non-2xx JSON responses	Generic "request failed" with no detail	YBA returns {"error": "..."} on most errors — surface it in exception messages.
Building universe JSON from scratch for v1	Missed required nested fields, edit fails silently or partially	Read the existing universe (GET /universes/{id}), mutate the relevant fields, POST back to the appropriate edit endpoint. Or use v2 if available.
Using GET /universes then string-matching on name	Loads every universe into memory	Use GET /api/v1/customers/{cUUID}/universes/find?name=<name> to resolve a name to a UUID.
Polling tasks faster than 1 Hz	Hammers YBA; some endpoints rate-limit	1–2 s polling interval is the recommended default.

Quick workflow: register → token → first call

# 1. Register (only succeeds the first time)
curl -sk -X POST "$YBA_URL/api/v1/register?generateApiToken=1" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"code":"dev","name":"Admin","email":"admin@example.com","password":"<pw>"}'
# →  {"apiToken":"...","customerUUID":"...","userUUID":"..."}

# 2. Or log in (existing instance — rotates the token)
curl -sk -X POST "$YBA_URL/api/v1/api_login" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"email":"admin@example.com","password":"<pw>"}'

# 3. Use the token
curl -sk "$YBA_URL/api/v1/customers/$CUSTOMER_ID/universes" \
  -H "X-AUTH-YW-API-TOKEN: $YBA_TOKEN"

For anything more elaborate than this, switch to the Python wrapper.