Autotask API Patterns

Autotask API Patterns

Overview

The Autotask REST API provides access to 215+ entities across the PSA. This skill covers authentication, query building, pagination, error handling, and performance optimization patterns.

Anti-triggers

• Autotask tools missing, or present but refusing to run — a lazy-loaded MCP connection exposes only four meta-tools. That is a discovery problem, not an auth or query problem; use autotask-tool-discovery.
• Instance-specific status, priority, queue, or phase IDs — the filter DSL will happily match an ID that does not exist in your tenant and return nothing. Fetch the real values with autotask-picklists.

Authentication

Header-Based Authentication

Autotask uses header-based authentication (NOT Basic Auth):

GET /v1.0/Tickets
ApiIntegrationCode: YOUR_INTEGRATION_CODE
UserName: your-api-user@domain.com
Secret: YOUR_SECRET
Content-Type: application/json

Required Headers:

Environment Variables

export AUTOTASK_USERNAME="your-api-user@domain.com"
export AUTOTASK_INTEGRATION_CODE="YOUR_INTEGRATION_CODE"
export AUTOTASK_SECRET="YOUR_SECRET"

Automatic Zone Detection

Autotask operates in multiple zones. The API can automatically detect your zone:

GET https://webservices.autotask.net/atservicesrest/v1.0/ZoneInformation
UserName: your-api-user@domain.com

Response:

{
  "url": "https://webservices5.autotask.net/atservicesrest",
  "webUrl": "https://ww5.autotask.net"
}

Common Zones:

Query Builder

Query Operators

The Autotask API supports 14 query operators:

Date Filtering: "Today" Queries

CRITICAL: To filter for records from "today", you must use a range — gte today's date AND lt tomorrow's date. Using only today's date (e.g. eq or a single filter on today) returns zero results. "Today" in Autotask means: created on or after today's midnight, but before tomorrow's midnight.

Correct — "tickets created today":

{
  "filter": [
    {"field": "createDate", "op": "gte", "value": "2026-04-13T00:00:00Z"},
    {"field": "createDate", "op": "lt", "value": "2026-04-14T00:00:00Z"}
  ]
}

Wrong — returns NO results:

{
  "filter": [
    {"field": "createDate", "op": "eq", "value": "2026-04-13"}
  ]
}

Always compute "tomorrow" dynamically. For example:

const today = new Date();
today.setHours(0, 0, 0, 0);
const tomorrow = new Date(today);
tomorrow.setDate(tomorrow.getDate() + 1);

const todayISO = today.toISOString(); // "2026-04-13T00:00:00.000Z"
const tomorrowISO = tomorrow.toISOString(); // "2026-04-14T00:00:00.000Z"

This pattern applies to all datetime fields (createDate, lastActivityDate, dueDateTime, startDateTime, endDateTime, dateWorked, etc.) across all entities — not just tickets.

Query Structure

POST /v1.0/Tickets/query
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "filter": [
    {"field": "companyID", "op": "eq", "value": 12345},
    {"field": "status", "op": "noteq", "value": 5}
  ],
  "maxRecords": 50,
  "includeFields": ["Company.companyName", "AssignedResource.firstName"]
}

Complex Queries with Logical Grouping

Filters combine with implicit AND. Use "op": "or" / "op": "and" with an items array to group or nest conditions:

{
  "filter": [
    {"field": "companyID", "op": "eq", "value": 12345},
    {
      "op": "or",
      "items": [
        {"field": "priority", "op": "eq", "value": 1},
        {"field": "status", "op": "eq", "value": 14}
      ]
    }
  ]
}

See references/api.md for an AND-only example and a nested AND/OR example.

Field Includes

Retrieve related entity fields in a single request:

{
  "filter": [{"field": "id", "op": "gt", "value": 0}],
  "includeFields": [
    "Company.companyName",
    "AssignedResource.firstName",
    "AssignedResource.lastName"
  ]
}

See references/api.md for the response shape returned when includes are used.

Pagination

Request Pagination

{
  "filter": [{"field": "id", "op": "gt", "value": 0}],
  "maxRecords": 100,
  "pageNumber": 1
}

Pagination Fields:

Response Structure

{
  "items": [...],
  "pageDetails": {
    "count": 100,
    "nextPageUrl": "/v1.0/Tickets/query?pageNumber=2",
    "prevPageUrl": null,
    "requestCount": 2847
  }
}

Page through results by looping while pageDetails.nextPageUrl is non-null. See references/examples.md for a full pagination loop implementation.

Rate Limiting

Autotask API Hard Limits

Autotask enforces two hard limits:

Concurrent thread limit is the most common cause of slowdowns in LLM-driven integrations. When Claude issues several tool calls in parallel (e.g., tickets search + companies search + contacts search), all three may target the Tickets endpoint simultaneously and hit the 3-thread cap.

When using the MCP server or autotask-node SDK, this is handled automatically — excess requests are queued and released as slots free up, so you won't see hard failures, but responses may be slower under load.

Multi-user / shared key risk: The 3-thread limit applies per integrationCode. If multiple users or teams share the same credentials, they compete for the same 3 slots. In a team deployment, give each team their own API user:

Support Team  → integrationCode: SUPPORT_TEAM_CODE  (3 threads, independent)
Projects Team → integrationCode: PROJECTS_TEAM_CODE (3 threads, independent)

Rate Limit Response

When the concurrent thread limit or hourly request limit is exceeded (HTTP 429):

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "Rate limit exceeded. Try again in 30 seconds."
    }
  ]
}

Implement exponential backoff with jitter on 429 responses, honoring Retry-After when present. See references/examples.md for a retry-with-backoff implementation.

Query Different Entity Types in Parallel

To maximize throughput without hitting the per-endpoint thread limit, query different endpoints in parallel rather than the same endpoint multiple times — parallel requests to Tickets + Companies + Contacts each get their own 3-thread budget, while parallel requests to multiple pages of the same endpoint share one budget and queue.

For bulk write operations, batch requests in groups (e.g. 50 at a time) with a short delay between batches to avoid the hourly limit. See references/examples.md for parallel-query and batch-processing code.

Error Handling

HTTP Status Codes

Error Response Format

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "The value '999' is not valid for field 'status'.",
      "field": "status",
      "value": 999
    }
  ]
}

When a field-level error is returned, cross-reference the field against /v1.0/<Entity>/entityInformation/fields (or /v1.0/Queues for queue IDs) to find valid values. See references/examples.md for a full validation-error handler.

Entity Information

Query field definitions and picklist values before writing to an unfamiliar entity:

GET /v1.0/Tickets/entityInformation/fields
GET /v1.0/Tickets/entityInformation/userDefinedFields

See references/api.md for the full response shape and CRUD (create/read/update/replace/delete) request examples.

Performance Optimization

Select Only Needed Fields

{
  "filter": [{"field": "id", "op": "gt", "value": 0}],
  "fields": ["id", "title", "status", "priority"]
}

Use Efficient Filters

Good - Uses indexed field:

{"field": "companyID", "op": "eq", "value": 12345}

Avoid - Full text search:

{"field": "description", "op": "contains", "value": "error"}

Cache Reference Data

Cache slowly-changing data — Queues, Resources, Issue Types, Priorities, Company lists — rather than re-fetching per request. See references/examples.md for a TTL-based cache pattern.

Best Practices

1. Detect zone once - Cache the zone URL after initial detection
2. Use includes - Avoid N+1 queries by including related data
3. Paginate large results - Never fetch unbounded result sets
4. Implement retry logic - Handle rate limits and transient errors
5. Cache reference data - Reduce API calls for static lookups
6. Select specific fields - Only request fields you need
7. Use batch operations - Group related operations together
8. One API key per team - Autotask limits 3 concurrent threads per integrationCode. Each team using the integration should have their own API user so they don't compete for the same thread budget
9. Parallelize across endpoints, not within - To maximize throughput, query Tickets + Companies + Contacts simultaneously (different endpoints, independent thread budgets) rather than fetching multiple pages of the same endpoint in parallel

Related Skills

• Autotask Tickets - Ticket management
• Autotask CRM - Company and contact management
• Autotask Contracts - Service agreements