Atera API Patterns

Atera API Patterns

Overview

The Atera REST API (v3) provides access to all major entities in the RMM/PSA platform. This skill covers authentication, pagination, rate limiting, error handling, and performance optimization patterns.

Authentication

X-API-KEY Header Authentication

Atera uses a simple API key authentication via the X-API-KEY header:

GET /api/v3/tickets
X-API-KEY: YOUR_API_KEY
Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/json

Required Headers:

Obtaining API Key

1. Log into Atera portal
2. Navigate to Admin > API
3. Generate or copy your API key
4. Store securely (treat as a password)

Environment Variable Setup

export ATERA_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

Base URL

All API requests use the following base URL. Atera requires HTTPS; plain HTTP is rejected.

https://app.atera.com/api/v3

Pagination

OData-Style Pagination

Atera uses OData-style pagination with page and itemsInPage parameters:

GET /api/v3/tickets?page=1&itemsInPage=50
X-API-KEY: {api_key}

Pagination Parameters:

Response Structure

{
  "items": [...],
  "totalItems": 2847,
  "page": 1,
  "itemsInPage": 50,
  "totalPages": 57
}

Response Fields:

Pagination Best Practices

1. Use maximum page size - 50 items reduces API calls
2. Add delays between pages - Avoid hitting rate limits
3. Cache total counts - Don't re-fetch unnecessarily
4. Implement retry logic - Handle transient failures

See references/examples.md for a working page-walking implementation.

Rate Limiting

Rate Limit: 700 Requests per Minute

Atera enforces a rate limit of 700 requests per minute per API key.

Rate Limit Headers

Atera may return rate limit information in response headers:

Rate Limit Response

When rate limited (HTTP 429):

{
  "Message": "Rate limit exceeded. Please wait before making more requests."
}

See references/examples.md for exponential-backoff retry and a sliding-window throttler.

Error Handling

HTTP Status Codes

Error Response Format

{
  "Message": "Error description here",
  "ErrorCode": "SPECIFIC_ERROR_CODE"
}

See references/examples.md for a request wrapper that maps these statuses to actionable errors.

CRUD Operations

Atera does not use PUT. Updates are a POST to the entity's ID URL — the same verb as create, distinguished only by whether the URL carries an ID:

POST /api/v3/tickets          # create
POST /api/v3/tickets/54321    # update
DELETE /api/v3/tickets/54321  # delete

Write responses return an ActionID alongside the entity ID rather than the full entity, so re-read the record if you need its post-write state.

See references/api.md for the complete endpoint catalog and full request/response shapes.

Performance Optimization

• Batch operations - group related requests, with a delay between batches
• Cache reference data - customers, contacts, and contracts change slowly
• Parallelize independent reads - but count them against the 700/min budget

See references/examples.md for batching, caching, and parallel-fetch implementations.

Related Skills

• Atera Tickets - Ticket management
• Atera Agents - Agent management
• Atera Customers - Customer management
• Atera Alerts - Alert management
• Atera Devices - Device monitors