Prerequisite: You must configure a Datastream and token before proceeding.

The http API is unique among the supported endpoints because it does not implement an existing specification. It is a generic endpoint and a convenient method of ingesting data over HTTP.

• Endpoint: /http
• URL: https://${OBSERVE_CUSTOMER}.collect.observeinc.com/v1/http
• Maximum request size: 10MB compressed (50mb uncompressed)

Ingest data over HTTP

You can send a POST request to Observe. Observe makes sense of the POST request based on the following principles:

• Observe parses the request body according to the content type header.
• The path component of the URL encodes as a tag.
• Query parameters encoded as tags.
• Up to 4 MB per observation, 10 MB per payload, or 50 MB after decompression per payload.
• Depending on the type of payload, further limits may apply.

As an example, the following POST:

$ curl -X POST https://${OBSERVE_CUSTOMER?}.collect.observeinc.com/v1/http/first/example?key=value \
	-H "Authorization: Bearer ${OBSERVE_DATASTREAM_TOKEN}" \
	-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
	-d '{"message":"Hello World!"}'

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Note

${OBSERVE_DATASTREAM_TOKEN} is the Token created when you added a Datastream. It consists of 20 random alphanumeric digits, a colon, and then 32 random alphanumeric digits.

For example, the Token may be generated as follows:
ab12C3de0FG4hIjklmn5:A123Bc_D4e5fghIjkl_MNO67PQ8Rstuv

Returns in an observation with the following values:

The observation fields are based on the request body, while path and query parameters are encoded in EXTRA. All observations in a payload are given the same EXTRA metadata. HTTP headers determine how the content is parsed.

For more about authentication, including Bearer token, see Authentication.

Supported content types

The HTTP endpoint supports the following content type values:

CSV ingestion example

Use curl to ingest Comma-Separated Values (CSV) data into Observe. For instance to ingest a example.csv file, use the following curl:

curl https://123456789012.collect.observeinc.com/v1/http \
 -H "Authorization: Bearer ab1cdE2FGhiJKlmnop34Q:rstUv5w6Xy7z8AB_CdeFg9h0iJK1mnOPqr" \
 -H "Content-type: text/csv" \
 --data-binary @./example.csv

After a minute or so, you can see the data in the appropriate Datastream.

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Note

CSV is limited to 1 MB per row.

JSON ingestion examples

Object

You can submit an object by setting the Content-Type header to application/json.
The object results in a single observation.

{
"message": "Hello World!"
}

Array of objects

You can submit an array of objects by setting the Content-Type header to application/json.
Each object results in a separate observation.

[
{
"id": 1
},
{
"id": 2
}
]

Newline delimited objects

If you have a stream of newline delimited objects, you can submit your data as content type application/x-ndjson. Each object results in a separate observation.

{
"id": 1
}
{
"id": 2
}
{
"id": 3
}

Compression

The Observe HTTP Endpoint supports gzip compressed data, by adding an encoding header. For example:

curl https://123456789012.collect.observeinc.com/v1/http \
 -H "Authorization: Bearer ab1cdE2FGhiJKlmnop34Q:rstUv5w6Xy7z8AB_CdeFg9h0iJK1mnOPqr" \
 -H "Content-type: text/csv" \
 -H "Content-encoding: gzip" \
 --data-binary @./example.csv.gz