Honeycomb API (1.0.0)

The API allows programmatic management of many resources within Honeycomb.

Please report any discrepancies with actual API behavior in Pollinators Slack or to Honeycomb Support.

https://docs.honeycomb.io
Download OpenAPI description
api.json
api.yaml
Overview
E-mail support@honeycomb.io
License Apache 2.0
Languages
Servers
https://api.honeycomb.io/
https://api.eu1.honeycomb.io/

Auth

API Keys have various scopes permissions and belong to a specific Team or Environment.

Any valid Honeycomb ingest or configuration API Key will work with this endpoint. Learn more about API keys.

These endpoints can be used to validate authentication for a key, to determine what authorizations have been granted to a key, and to determine the Team and Environment that a key belongs to.

Operations

Boards

Boards are a place to pin and save useful queries and graphs you want to retain for later reuse and reference.

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete Boards.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Public Boards permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Burn Alerts

This feature is available as part of the Honeycomb Pro and Enterprise plans.

Burn Alerts notify you when issues impact your SLO budget. Learn more about Burn Alerts here.

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete burn alerts.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage SLOs permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Columns

Columns are fields in the events you send to Honeycomb.

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete columns in a dataset.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Queries and Columns permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Create a Column

Request

Create a column by providing corresponding details for that type.

Path
datasetSlugstringrequired

The dataset slug.

Bodyapplication/jsonrequired
key_namestring[ 1 .. 255 ] charactersrequired

Name of the Column.

Example: "my_column"
typestring

Type of the data that the Column will contain.

Default "string"
Enum"string""float""integer""boolean"
Example: "integer"
descriptionstring<= 255 characters

Column description.

Example: "An integer column"
hiddenboolean

If true, the column is excluded from autocomplete and raw data field lists.

Default false
curl -i -X POST \
  'https://api.honeycomb.io/1/columns/{datasetSlug}' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'X-Honeycomb-Team: YOUR_API_KEY_HERE' \
  -d '{
    "key_name": "my_column",
    "type": "integer",
    "description": "An integer column",
    "hidden": false
  }'

Responses

Success

Headers
Ratelimitstring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "limit=X, remaining=Y, reset=Z". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in the window
  • Y is the number of requests remaining in the window
  • Z is the number of seconds until the limit resets
Example: "limit=100, remaining=50, reset=60"
RateLimitPolicystring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "X;w=Y". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in a window
  • Y is the size of the window in seconds
Example: "100;w=60"
Bodyapplication/json
key_namestring[ 1 .. 255 ] charactersread-onlyrequired

Name of the Column.

Example: "my_column"
typestring

Type of the data that the Column will contain.

Default "string"
Enum"string""float""integer""boolean"
Example: "integer"
descriptionstring<= 255 characters

Column description.

Example: "An integer column"
hiddenboolean

If true, the column is excluded from autocomplete and raw data field lists.

Default false
idstringread-only

Unique identifier (ID), returned in response bodies.

last_writtenstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was last written to (received event data).

created_atstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was created.

updated_atstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was updated.

Response
application/json
{
  "id": "yUheCUmgZ8p",
  "key_name": "my_column",
  "hidden": false,
  "description": "An integer column",
  "type": "integer",
  "last_written": "2022-07-26T22:38:05Z",
  "created_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z",
  "updated_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z"
}

List all Columns

Request

Get all the Columns in a dataset

Path
datasetSlugstringrequired

The dataset slug.

Query
key_namestring

the column key name

curl -i -X GET \
  'https://api.honeycomb.io/1/columns/{datasetSlug}?key_name=string' \
  -H 'X-Honeycomb-Team: YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'

Responses

When listing all columns, an array of Column objects will be returned. When using key_name, will return a single Column object if found.

Headers
Ratelimitstring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "limit=X, remaining=Y, reset=Z". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in the window
  • Y is the number of requests remaining in the window
  • Z is the number of seconds until the limit resets
Example: "limit=100, remaining=50, reset=60"
RateLimitPolicystring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "X;w=Y". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in a window
  • Y is the size of the window in seconds
Example: "100;w=60"
Bodyapplication/json
One of:
Array [
key_namestring[ 1 .. 255 ] charactersread-onlyrequired

Name of the Column.

Example: "my_column"
typestring

Type of the data that the Column will contain.

Default "string"
Enum"string""float""integer""boolean"
Example: "integer"
descriptionstring<= 255 characters

Column description.

Example: "An integer column"
hiddenboolean

If true, the column is excluded from autocomplete and raw data field lists.

Default false
idstringread-only

Unique identifier (ID), returned in response bodies.

last_writtenstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was last written to (received event data).

created_atstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was created.

updated_atstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was updated.

]
Response
application/json

Lists all columns.

[
  {
    "id": "yUheCUmgZ8p",
    "key_name": "my_column",
    "hidden": false,
    "description": "",
    "type": "integer",
    "last_written": "2022-07-26T22:38:05Z",
    "created_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z",
    "updated_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z"
  },
  {
    "id": "yUheCUmgZ8q",
    "key_name": "other_column",
    "hidden": false,
    "description": "",
    "type": "string",
    "last_written": "2022-07-26T22:38:05Z",
    "created_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z",
    "updated_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z"
  }
]

Get a Column

Request

Path
datasetSlugstringrequired

The dataset slug.

columnIdstringrequired

Unique identifier (ID) of a column.

curl -i -X GET \
  'https://api.honeycomb.io/1/columns/{datasetSlug}/{columnId}' \
  -H 'X-Honeycomb-Team: YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'

Responses

Success

Headers
Ratelimitstring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "limit=X, remaining=Y, reset=Z". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in the window
  • Y is the number of requests remaining in the window
  • Z is the number of seconds until the limit resets
Example: "limit=100, remaining=50, reset=60"
RateLimitPolicystring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "X;w=Y". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in a window
  • Y is the size of the window in seconds
Example: "100;w=60"
Bodyapplication/json
key_namestring[ 1 .. 255 ] charactersread-onlyrequired

Name of the Column.

Example: "my_column"
typestring

Type of the data that the Column will contain.

Default "string"
Enum"string""float""integer""boolean"
Example: "integer"
descriptionstring<= 255 characters

Column description.

Example: "An integer column"
hiddenboolean

If true, the column is excluded from autocomplete and raw data field lists.

Default false
idstringread-only

Unique identifier (ID), returned in response bodies.

last_writtenstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was last written to (received event data).

created_atstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was created.

updated_atstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was updated.

Response
application/json
{
  "id": "yUheCUmgZ8p",
  "key_name": "my_column",
  "hidden": false,
  "description": "",
  "type": "integer",
  "last_written": "2022-07-26T22:38:05Z",
  "created_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z",
  "updated_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z"
}

Update a Column

Request

Update a column

Path
datasetSlugstringrequired

The dataset slug.

columnIdstringrequired

Unique identifier (ID) of a column.

Bodyapplication/jsonrequired
typestring

Type of the data that the Column will contain.

Default "string"
Enum"string""float""integer""boolean"
Example: "integer"
descriptionstring<= 255 characters

Column description.

Example: "An integer column"
hiddenboolean

If true, the column is excluded from autocomplete and raw data field lists.

Default false
curl -i -X PUT \
  'https://api.honeycomb.io/1/columns/{datasetSlug}/{columnId}' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'X-Honeycomb-Team: YOUR_API_KEY_HERE' \
  -d '{
    "key_name": "my_column",
    "type": "integer",
    "description": "An integer column",
    "hidden": false
  }'

Responses

Success

Headers
Ratelimitstring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "limit=X, remaining=Y, reset=Z". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in the window
  • Y is the number of requests remaining in the window
  • Z is the number of seconds until the limit resets
Example: "limit=100, remaining=50, reset=60"
RateLimitPolicystring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "X;w=Y". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in a window
  • Y is the size of the window in seconds
Example: "100;w=60"
Bodyapplication/json
key_namestring[ 1 .. 255 ] charactersread-onlyrequired

Name of the Column.

Example: "my_column"
typestring

Type of the data that the Column will contain.

Default "string"
Enum"string""float""integer""boolean"
Example: "integer"
descriptionstring<= 255 characters

Column description.

Example: "An integer column"
hiddenboolean

If true, the column is excluded from autocomplete and raw data field lists.

Default false
idstringread-only

Unique identifier (ID), returned in response bodies.

last_writtenstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was last written to (received event data).

created_atstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was created.

updated_atstringread-only

ISO8601 formatted time the column was updated.

Response
application/json
{
  "id": "yUheCUmgZ8p",
  "key_name": "my_column",
  "hidden": false,
  "description": "",
  "type": "string",
  "last_written": "2022-07-26T22:38:05Z",
  "created_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z",
  "updated_at": "2022-07-26T22:38:04Z"
}

Delete a Column

Request

Delete a column. Note: Deleted columns are no longer queryable, but data in existing permalinks (query results and trace views) will remain stored and available at those links.

Path
datasetSlugstringrequired

The dataset slug.

columnIdstringrequired

Unique identifier (ID) of a column.

curl -i -X DELETE \
  'https://api.honeycomb.io/1/columns/{datasetSlug}/{columnId}' \
  -H 'X-Honeycomb-Team: YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'

Responses

Success - no content

Headers
Ratelimitstring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "limit=X, remaining=Y, reset=Z". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in the window
  • Y is the number of requests remaining in the window
  • Z is the number of seconds until the limit resets
Example: "limit=100, remaining=50, reset=60"
RateLimitPolicystring

The (draft07) recommended header from the IETF on rate limiting. The value of the header is formatted "X;w=Y". Where:

  • X is the maximum number of requests allowed in a window
  • Y is the size of the window in seconds
Example: "100;w=60"
Response
No content

Datasets

A Dataset represents a collection of related events that come from the same source, or are related to the same source.

This API allows you to list, create, and update datasets.

Authorization

The API key must have the Create Datasets permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Dataset Definitions

Dataset definitions describe the fields with special meaning in the Dataset.

Refer to the Dataset Definitions documentation for more information.

Honeycomb automatically creates these Dataset definition fields when the Dataset is created. Manual creation of Dataset definitions is not needed.

Authorization

The API key must have the Create Datasets permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Derived Columns

Derived columns allow you to run queries based on the value of an expression that is derived from the columns in an event.

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete derived columns in a dataset or across a whole environment, paralleling the behavior of the Schema tab within a Dataset's or Environment's Settings UI.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Queries and Columns permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Events

The Events API endpoints are the lowest-level way to send Events to Honeycomb. This should be your last resort!

If unsure where to start when instrumenting an application, read about how to Send Data to Honeycomb.

If you are building a tracing or metrics library, we recommend using OpenTelemetry.

Authorization

It is recommended that an Ingest API key is used for sending events.

A Configuration API key will work, and must have the Send Events permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Environments

This API allows you to list, create, and update, and delete Environments.

Operations

Key Management

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete API Keys for a Team.

Learn more about API keys here.

Note: currently only Ingest Keys are supported.

Operations

Kinesis Events

The Kinesis Events API endpoints allow Honeycomb to process streaming events from Amazon Kinesis.

Refer to the Honeycomb AWS integrations documentation for more information.

Authorization

It is recommended that an Ingest API key is used for sending events.

A Configuration API key will work, and must have the Send Events permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Markers

Markers indicate points in time on graphs where interesting things happen, such as deploys or outages.

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete Markers.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Markers permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Marker Settings

Marker Settings apply to groups of similar Markers. For example, "deploys" markers appear with the same color on a graph.

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete Marker Settings.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Markers permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Queries

Queries in Honeycomb are specifications for queries, and are used to identify queries in other parts of the API - in particular: boards, triggers, and query annotations.

This API allows you to create and get query objects.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Queries and Columns permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Query Annotations

Query Annotations in Honeycomb allow you to associate names and descriptions to queries to add additional information in collaboration features.

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete Query Annotations.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Queries and Columns permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Query Data

This feature is available as part of the Honeycomb Enterprise plan.

Query Results are the aggregated data from a Query, similar to what is displayed in graphs or heatmaps within the Honeycomb UI. Receiving results from a Query is a three-step process:

Create the Query (or Query Spec), which validates that the query parameters are valid. Creating a query does not actually run the query to get results. Run the query asynchronously by creating a Query Result referencing the Query’s ID. This returns a Query Result ID. Poll the query result endpoint (with the Query Result ID) until the data is ready.

Note that many Query Results can be created from a single Query. This is particularly useful when using a relative time_range parameter in the Query. For example, a Query with time_range: 7200 and no explicit start_time or end_time can be re-run over and over, with each resulting Query Result containing the most recent 2 hours of data. This is conceptually similar to clicking Run Query in the Honeycomb UI without changing any query parameters.

IMPORTANT API RESTRICTIONS:

To ensure the stability of Honeycomb systems, we have enabled the following API restrictions. These restrictions may change over time.

  • Query Results can only be created for events with timestamps within the past 7 days.

  • When creating a Query Result, the time ranges from the Query are truncated according to the following rules. For queries with a time range of:

    • less than or equal to 6 hours, results are truncated to the nearest 1 minute. For example, a start/end time of 2021-04-22T05:28:12Z will be truncated to 2021-04-22T05:28:00Z.

    • greater than 6 hours and less than or equal to 2 days, results are truncated to the nearest 5 minutes. For example, a start/end time of 2021-04-22T05:28:12Z will be truncated to 2021-04-22T05:25:00Z.

    • greater than 2 days and less than or equal to 7 days, results are truncated to the nearest 30 minutes. For example, a start/end time of 2021-04-22T05:28:12Z will be truncated to 2021-04-22T05:00:00Z.

  • Creating a Query Result is rate limited to 10 requests per minute. Status code 429 will be returned when rate limited.

  • Query Results cannot take longer than 10 seconds to run.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Queries and Columns and Run Queries permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Recipients

Honeycomb Recipients allow you to define and manage the Recipients that will get notified by a Trigger or Burn Alert.

The types of Recipients supported are: PagerDuty, Email, Webhook, Microsoft Teams, and Slack.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Recipients permission. Recipients are team-wide and NOT environment-specific. API Keys with the Manage Recipients permission can modify recipients used by ALL environments for a given team.

Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

SLOs

This feature is available as part of the Honeycomb Pro and Enterprise plans.

Honeycomb SLOs allow you to define and monitor Service Level Objectives (SLOs) for your organization.

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete SLO objects.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage SLOs permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Triggers

Triggers let you receive notifications when your data in Honeycomb crosses the thresholds that you configure. The graph on which to alert is as flexible as a Honeycomb query, which helps reduce false positives due to known errors.Triggers fire

This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete Triggers.

Authorization

The API key must have the Manage Triggers permission. Learn more about API keys here.

Operations

Errors

The Honeycomb API returns standardized error responses, as documented here.