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Developer API context

The Developer APIs provide tools that give developers insights into their API integrations. The APIs are designed to let you review user and application specific data that can help you update and maintain your eBay applications.

eBay Developer APIs

There is a single API in the Developer API context:

Developer API documentation and resources

eBay developer documentation consists of several sets of documentation, and the Developer API context makes use of the same documentation structure that's used across all eBay RESTful APIs.

RESTful API documentation

The Using eBay RESTful APIs guide sits atop all the RESTful documentation and describes how to format requests, configure the OAuth authorization needed for each request, handle errors, and more. Refer to this guide for all the details on making RESTful requests.

In addition to Using eBay RESTful APIs, each API also gets released with complete set of documentation that describes the details of API methods with samples and how-to information. The structure of each APIs documentation is outlined in the following table:

API Documentation

Document Title

Description
API Overview

The Overview for an API contains:

  • A general description of the API, with details on the resources supported by the API.
  • A list of the use cases that can be addressed with the API.
  • The list of requirements and restrictions that you need to be aware of when using the API.

Release Notes

Each API has a set of Release Notes that detail each major and minor release of the API.
API Reference

The API Reference for each API contains a index of the resources used by the API and the list of methods that act upon each resource.

Each method in the API has a method page that details the HTTP headers, OAuth scopes, and any parameters needed to make a request to the method. The page also details of request and response payloads, with descriptions of request and response objects and associated fields. The response information includes a list or error codes that can be returned plus details on the HTTP status codes returned in the response.

Each method page also contains one or more samples that shows the key inputs and outputs for the method.
Integration Guide The Buying Integration Guide and Selling Integration Guide each provide conceptual and how-to information for the main tasks performed by developers who code buying or selling applications.

OpenAPI specs

Each API Reference has links to the OpenAPI specs that you can use to download the OpenAPI 2 or OpenAPI 3 contracts for the API in either YAML or JSON  formats. You can use these contracts to create application stubs in the language of your choice.

API Explorer

The API Explorer is a tool that you can use to quickly review request samples and make calls to the methods you're researching.

For details, see Using API Explorer.

Other resources

In addition to the above-mentioned documentation and resources, refer to the following resources for additional help: