Kickstart

The API key

Here is the simplest kickstart file you can use, it simply adds a single API key and that’s it. This may be useful if you intend to complete the rest of your setup by calling APIs in your own application or development setup script.

{
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "4737ea8520bd454caabb7cb3d36e14bc1832c0d3f70a4189b82598670f11b1bd"
    }
  ]
}

This API key can be any string, and you should specify one unique to your FusionAuth instance. This value should ideally be a long random value. Please don’t use the above key in a production environment.

Because this value will primarily be used during your integration as an Authorization HTTP request header. If you utilize non-ASCII characters in your API key you will need to ensure they are properly escaped in the HTTP request header. For this reason, unless you have specific requirements, utilizing a long alphanumeric string using an underscore _ or dash - for visual separation if desired will be ideal and quite sufficient to ensure a high entropy key.

{
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "4737ea8520bd454caabb7cb3d36e14bc1832c0d3f70a4189b82598670f11b1bd"
    },
    {
      "key": "0ad00c5f140c43f8bc2a155dd0edf3b7d61f5dd4011843d8a28475a0d812c033",
      "description": "Restricted API key - only for Retrieve User",
      "permissions": {
        "endpoints": {
          "/api/user": [
            "GET"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Using Variables

You may find yourself repeating yourself when you build your kickstart file, nobody likes to type the same value over and over. Use variables to help you reduce repetition.

To use a variable, define the key and value in the variables section of the kickstart file and then access that value anywhere outside of the variables section using the #{foo} notation where foo is the name of the variable.

Here is the same example as above, but instead of hard coding the API key, we are using a variable which can be reused. This example is not particularly helpful, we’ve only moved the value from the apiKeys section to the variables section, but using variables can come in handy as you’ll see in the next few examples.

{
  "variables": {
    "apiKey": "4737ea8520bd454caabb7cb3d36e14bc1832c0d3f70a4189b82598670f11b1bd"
  },
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "#{apiKey}",
      "description": "My first API Key!"
    }
  ]
}

Using Environment Variables

It is reasonable to think you may not want to hard code a password or API key in the kickstart file which could get checked into version control. You can use environment variables which should make this a bit easier for you.

To use an environment variable prefix the name of the environment variable with ENV..

Here is the same example as above, but instead of hard coding the API key, we are picking it up from an environment variable. Here we will resolve the value of the API key in the environment variable named FUSIONAUTH_API_KEY. This value will be set into the variable apiKey and then when the API key is constructed the value of the API key will be resolved to the apiKey variable value.

{
  "variables": {
    "apiKey": "#{ENV.FUSIONAUTH_API_KEY}"
  },
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "#{apiKey}"
    }
  ]
}

Adding API Requests

Now comes the interesting part. Once you have defined at least one API key, you can define one to many API requests that will be executed in order using the primary API key. You may call any API you like, but you are limited to the POST, PUT and PATCH HTTP methods.

Here is an example of creating a FusionAuth admin user using the requests object array. This example is using the Registration API to create the User and registration in a single request.

You’ll notice we are using a special variable that we did not define in the variables object. This is one of two reserved variables provided for your convenience.

• FUSIONAUTH_APPLICATION_ID - The Id of the FusionAuth application

• FUSIONAUTH_TENANT_ID - The Id of the default Tenant which is where the FusionAuth application resides

{
  "variables": {
    "apiKey": "#{ENV.FUSIONAUTH_API_KEY}",
    "adminPassword": "#{ENV.FUSIONAUTH_ADMIN_PASSWORD}"
  },
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "#{apiKey}"
    }
  ],
  "requests": [
    {
      "method": "POST",
      "url": "/api/user/registration",
      "body": {
        "user": {
          "email": "monica@piedpiper.com",
          "password": "#{adminPassword}",
          "data": {
            "Company": "PiedPiper"
          }
        },
        "registration": {
          "applicationId": "#{FUSIONAUTH_APPLICATION_ID}",
          "roles": [
            "admin"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

{
  "variables": {
    "apiKey": "#{ENV.FUSIONAUTH_API_KEY}",
    "adminPassword": "#{ENV.FUSIONAUTH_ADMIN_PASSWORD}",
    "secondTenantId": "#{UUID()}"
  },
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "#{apiKey}"
    }
  ],
  "requests": [
    {
      "method": "POST",
      "url": "/api/tenant/#{secondTenantId}",
      "body": {
        "tenant": {
          "name": "Aviato"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "method": "POST",
      "url": "/api/application",
      "tenantId": "#{secondTenantId}",
      "body": {
        "application": {
          "name": "My Cool Application"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

{
  "variables": {
    "secondTenantId": "#{UUID()}"
  },
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "4737ea8520bd454caabb7cb3d36e14bc1832c0d3f70a4189b82598670f11b1bd"
    },
    {
      "key": "0ad00c5f140c43f8bc2a155dd0edf3b7d61f5dd4011843d8a28475a0d812c033",
      "description": "Restricted API key - only for Retrieve User in Aviato",
      "permissions": {
        "endpoints": {
          "/api/user": [
            "GET"
          ]
        }
      },
      "tenantId": "#{secondTenantId}"
    }
  ],
  "requests": [
    {
      "method": "POST",
      "url": "/api/tenant/#{secondTenantId}",
      "body": {
        "tenant": {
          "name": "Aviato"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Modify the default Tenant Id

FusionAuth generates the Id for the default tenant when the database schema is first created. For development and production environments it may be helpful to have a known tenantId for consistency across environments.

You may modify the default Tenant Id in your kickstart file by setting a special variable: defaultTenantId. In this example we have set the default Tenant Id to 30663132-6464-6665-3032-326466613934. This value must be a valid UUID.

The value resolved when using the FUSIONAUTH_TENANT_ID variable will reflect this change.

{
  "variables": {
    "defaultTenantId": "30663132-6464-6665-3032-326466613934"
  }
}

Set your License Id

If you have a paid edition of FusionAuth you will be provided with a License Id. If you would like to set this value during kickstart you will set the value in a top level field called licenseId.

In this example I have a license Id of eb7244dc-5d8e-40cd-a005-70b116fbda31.

{
  "licenseId": "eb7244dc-5d8e-40cd-a005-70b116fbda31"
}

If you are using the community edition, you can omit this field.

Settings

Kickstart works by making API calls. By default each API request has a read and a connect timeout, and the API call will fail if it does not succeed within the timeout period.

You can configure these timeouts with a different value. For example, if you have high latency between the FusionAuth instance and its database, you may need to increase these values. In general the default setting should be adequate, but this is also useful for troubleshooting connectivity issues.

You can do so by creating a toplevel settings object, and setting either or both of the connectTimeout and readTimeout attributes. The value is specified in milliseconds.

Below, both timeouts are set to 7 seconds.

{
  "settings" : {
    "connectTimeout": 7000,
    "readTimeout": 7000
  }
}

Include Text Files

When making API requests to create an email template or request which may have lengthy values, it may be helpful to separate these values into separate files. The directories shown here are just examples, and you can use your own convention.

To include a text file in your kickstart definition, use the @{fileName} syntax where the fileName is a relative path from your kickstart file. For this type of include, we handle all line returns and properly JSON escape them for use in a JSON request body.

For example, consider the following directory structure:

|- kickstart.json
|- emails/
|  |- setup-password.html
|  |- setup-password.txt

In this example we are creating an Email template and reading in the values for the text and html values from files in a sub-directory named emails. Reading files in like this allows you to format your emails nicely and Kickstart will handle the necessary JSON escaping to complete the API request.

{
  "variables": {
    "apiKey": "#{ENV.FUSIONAUTH_API_KEY}"
  },
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "#{apiKey}"
    }
  ],
  "requests": [
    {
      "method": "POST",
      "url": "/api/email/template/0502df1e-4010-4b43-b571-d423fce978b2",
      "body": {
        "emailTemplate": {
          "defaultFromName": "No Reply",
          "defaultSubject": "Setup your password",
          "defaultHtmlTemplate": "@{emails/setup-password.html}",
          "defaultTextTemplate": "@{emails/setup-password.txt}",
          "fromEmail": "no-replay@piedpiper.com",
          "name": "Setup Password"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Newlines are preserved in included text files, whereas they are not in the kickstart file. If you are, for example, including a lambda function definition, it may lead to better readability if you include the body from a text file.

Include JSON files

If you’re making a lot of API requests, or simply want to manage each API request body separately it may be helpful to read in external JSON files. The directories shown here are just examples, and you can use your own convention.

To include a JSON file in your kickstart definition use the &{fileName} syntax where the fileName is a relative path from your kickstart file. If this type of include is used, we expect the file to be JSON and we don’t do anything with line returns.

For example, consider the following directory structure:

|- kickstart.json
|- emails/
|  |- setup-password.html
|  |- setup-password.txt
|- json/
|  |- setup-password.json

Here are the contents of the json/setup-password.json file, you’ll see that in this example we are still reading in the values for defaultHtmlTemplate and defaultTextTemplate.

{
  "emailTemplate": {
    "defaultFromName": "No Reply",
    "defaultSubject": "Setup your password",
    "defaultHtmlTemplate": "@{emails/setup-password.html}",
    "defaultTextTemplate": "@{emails/setup-password.txt}",
    "fromEmail": "no-replay@piedpiper.com",
    "name": "Setup Password"
  }
}

We will replicate the previous example but the entire JSON body of the request will move to setup-password.json.

{
  "variables": {
    "apiKey": "#{ENV.FUSIONAUTH_API_KEY}"
  },
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "#{apiKey}"
    }
  ],
  "requests": [
    {
      "method": "POST",
      "url": "/api/email/template/0502df1e-4010-4b43-b571-d423fce978b2",
      "body": "&{json/setup-password.json}"
    }
  ]
}

You may also include an entire request using this pattern, consider the following directory structure:

|- kickstart.json
|- emails/
|  |- setup-password.html
|  |- setup-password.txt
|- json/
|  |- setup-password.json
|- requests/
|  |- setup-password.json

Here are the contents of the requests/setup-password.json file.

{
  "method": "POST",
  "url": "/api/email/template/0502df1e-4010-4b43-b571-d423fce978b2",
  "body": {
    "emailTemplate": {
      "defaultFromName": "No Reply",
      "defaultSubject": "Setup your password",
      "defaultHtmlTemplate": "@{emails/setup-password.html}",
      "defaultTextTemplate": "@{emails/setup-password.txt}",
      "fromEmail": "no-replay@piedpiper.com",
      "name": "Setup Password"
    }
  }
}

And the usage in the kickstart file:

{
  "variables": {
    "apiKey": "#{ENV.FUSIONAUTH_API_KEY}"
  },
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "key": "#{apiKey}"
    }
  ],
  "requests": [
    "&{requests/setup-password.json}"
  ]
}

Reference