REST API quick start

The API is part of the REST API access add-on ($5 a month), which the Pro and Business presets include. The complete reference is the API documentation; this article shows how to use it in practice.

1. Open API keys in the dashboard and create a key with a descriptive name ("deploy pipeline", "inventory sync").
2. Copy the key immediately: it is shown only once. FastPing stores only a hash of it; the list shows the first characters so you can tell keys apart.
3. Store it in a secret manager or your CI system's secrets, never in a repository.

A key gives full access to the organisation's monitors. Use one key per integration so that you can delete a single key if it leaks without breaking the others.

Send the key as a bearer token. Responses are JSON.

export FASTPING_KEY=fp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $FASTPING_KEY" https://fastping.app/api/v1/monitors

Each key may make 120 requests per minute. Above that, the API answers 429 with a Retry-After header giving the seconds to wait.

To create a monitor, send type, name, url (website, keyword and API types) or host (other types), port where the type uses one, interval in seconds and an options object. Option names are listed in the API option column of each monitor type's settings table in this help centre. An interval below your plan's minimum is raised to it. Security scan monitors cannot be created through the API.

Create a website monitor

curl -s -X POST https://fastping.app/api/v1/monitors \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FASTPING_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"type":"http","name":"Shop","url":"https://shop.example.com","interval":60,"options":{"maxMs":1500}}'

Create a heartbeat and get its URL

curl -s -X POST https://fastping.app/api/v1/monitors \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FASTPING_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"type":"heartbeat","name":"Nightly backup","interval":86400,"options":{"grace":3600}}' \
  | jq -r .heartbeat_url

Add many websites from a file

One URL per line in urls.txt; jq builds the JSON so that special characters are escaped correctly:

while read -r url; do
  jq -n --arg url "$url" '{type: "http", name: $url, url: $url}' |
    curl -fsS -X POST https://fastping.app/api/v1/monitors \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer $FASTPING_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      --data-binary @- > /dev/null && echo "added $url"
done < urls.txt

List monitors that are down

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $FASTPING_KEY" https://fastping.app/api/v1/monitors \
  | jq -r '.monitors[] | select(.status == "down") | "\(.name)\t\(.last_message)"'

Pause a monitor during a deployment

curl -fsS -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $FASTPING_KEY" https://fastping.app/api/v1/monitors/12/pause
./deploy.sh
curl -fsS -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $FASTPING_KEY" https://fastping.app/api/v1/monitors/12/resume

Errors are JSON objects with an error message: