Webex REST API Basics

While working with the Webex REST API is easy, there are a few things we standardize on throughout the API, such as pagination of long result sets or HTTP response codes.


As adoption of Webex continues to grow, so does the amount of content being shared by team members. We've addressed this in the Webex APIs by including support for pagination.

It would be impractical to return all messages in a busy space, for example. With pagination, the Webex API returns a specific number of items at a time; allowing your app to request more items as needed.

Navigating Pages

The Webex APIs implement the RFC5988 (Web Linking) standard for pagination. When requesting a list of resources the response may contain a Link header containing the URLs to the first, next, and previous page.

For example, requesting GET /people?displayName=Harold may return a link header like this one:

Link: <https://api.ciscospark.com/v1/people?displayName=Harold&max=10&before&after=Y2lzY29zcGFyazovL3VzL1BFT1BMRS83MTZlOWQxYy1jYTQ0LTRmZWQtOGZjYS05ZGY0YjRmNDE3ZjU> rel="next"

Notice the rel="next" at the end of the line. This tells your app that another page is available and provides the URL to fetch it.

The list of possible relationship types are:

nextLink to the next page
firstLink back to the first page
prevLink to the previous page

Please note that only the rel="next" link header is guaranteed at this time. We may include other link types, that are defined in the RFC5988 (Web Linking) standard, in the future.

Controlling Page Size

When requesting a list of resources the max query parameter may be used to control the number of items returned per page. For example, requesting GET /people?displayName=Harold&max=2 tells the API to return only 2 items per page.

If the requested max query parameter value exceeds what a particular API endpoint allows, only the maximum number of items allowed per page for that endpoint will be returned. A rel="next" link header will be present if another page of results is available.

anchorMessage Attachments

Webex Teams has native support for posting messages with file attachments. Using the Messages API you can send messages containing text, text with attachments, or just share a file with the room without any text. Message attachments are limited to 100MB each.

What you may not know is that Webex Teams has special support for most PDFs, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and most popular image formats. For these file types, Webex Teams clients will render a preview in the room and a full view when clicked.

Here is the complete list of supported file types and extensions:

  • Microsoft Word (doc, docx)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt, pptx)
  • Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)
  • JPEG (jpg, jpeg)
  • Windows Bitmap (bmp)
  • Graphics Interchange Format (gif)
  • Portable Network Graphics (png)
Send a Message with Attachments
Local File Attachments

To send local file attachments, simply post a message by including your access token in the Authorization header and the path to your local file with the files parameter. Optionally, you can also include a plain-text message with the attachment by using the text parameter. When uploading files directly from your local filesystem, your request will need to be a multipart/form-data request rather than JSON. Here's an example of using cURL to send a new message with a local file as a file attachment:

curl --request POST \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  --form "files=@/home/desktop/example.png;type=image/png" \
  --form "roomId=Y2lzY2....." \
  --form "text=example attached" \

You can also use your favorite scripting language to send messages with local files. Here's an example of using Python with a local file:

import requests
from requests_toolbelt.multipart.encoder import MultipartEncoder

m = MultipartEncoder({'roomId': 'Y2lzY2.....',
                      'text': 'example attached',
                      'files': ('example.png', open('example.png', 'rb'),

r = requests.post('https://api.ciscospark.com/v1/messages', data=m,
                  headers={'Authorization': 'Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN',
                  'Content-Type': m.content_type})

print r.text
Remote Attachments

Alternatively, if you have a file available via a publicly-accessible URL that you wish to share, you can use the URL as the value in the files JSON parameter instead of attaching your local file in a multipart message. The files parameter currently takes one URL as an input. A plain-text message can also be included in the text parameter. Here's an example of using cURL to send a new message with a remote file as a file attachment:

curl --request POST \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  --data '{"roomId":"Y2lzY2.....","text":"Example file","files":["http://www.example.com/images/media.png"]}' \
Retrieve Message Attachments
Retrieving Message Details

In order to retrieve the file details such as filename and content-type, you can simply use a HEAD request with your access token in the Authorization header. This is particularly useful if you just want to verify the filename and type before downloading the content.

curl -I https://api.ciscospark.com/v1/contents/Y2lzY...... -H "Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN"

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: no-cache
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="example.png"
Content-Length: 44752
Content-Type: image/png
Retrieving Message Attachments

Files attached to a message are returned in the files property of the message object. To retrieve one of these files you should issue a GET request on the file URL including your Access Token in the Authorization header.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN" https://api.ciscospark.com/v1/contents/Y2lzY......
anchorFormatting Messages

Webex Teams clients, across all platforms, can send and receive a limited form of rich text messages formatted using the Markdown markup language. Bots and integrations can also send rich text messages formatted with Markdown, by using the Messages API.

Sending formatted text is super easy using the markdown parameter in the Messages API, though only a limited set of Markdown is supported at this time. See below for examples of the formatting supported in the Webex Teams clients.

But, before we dive into the examples below, there's an important note we need to mention about line breaks: The examples below do not include any JSON newline characters (\n) to create line breaks in Webex Teams messages—we've left them out to focus on just the specific Markdown example. To include line breaks in your JSON message body, use standard Markdown paragraphs and line breaks with JSON newline characters. For example, to create distinct paragraphs, use two newline characters between the paragraphs:

Paragraph 1\n\nParagraph 2

Or, for a single break between lines, end the line with two spaces followed by a single newline character:

Line 1  \nLine 2
**Title:** Add support for multiple file uploads

**Status:** Closed
This is *the best* launch we've had so far!
Should we try the sushi place for lunch?
- [Oh yea!](http://example.com/polls/yd242?response=yes)
- [Ewww Sushi](http://example.com/polls/yd242?response=no)
- [Not today](http://example.com/polls/yd242?response=later)
Ordered Lists
Priorities for the week are:
1. Collect Underpants
2. ???
3. Profit
Unordered Lists
Good morning Joe Fu. Here's your todo list:
- Review that really important thing.
- Meet Jason for lunch.
- Buy a new shirt. The one you're wearing is terrible.
Block Quotes
Alice, last week you said:
> I don't care what it costs. Let's book The Chainsmokers to headline Cisco Live.

Christine from finance laughed and is now questioning our sanity.
In-Line Code
Mike, I think the issue is with the `hasPermission` function
Fenced Code Blocks
Hello world in golang:
package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello, 世界")

Just like in the Webex Teams clients, @mentions can be used in messages to get someone's attention in a group room. To @mention someone, use one of the following methods to specify the person or group of people:

Mention by Email
Hi <@personEmail:banderson@example.com|Bobby>, your order has been processed.
Mention by Person ID
We should get <@personId:Y2lzY29zcGFyazovL3VzL1BFT1BMRS9mNWIzNjE4Ny1jOGRkLTQ3MjctOGIyZi1mOWM0NDdmMjkwNDY|Jose> to look at that right away.
Mention by Group
<@all>, we have some exciting news! Please watch this space for more information...
anchorRate Limiting

The Webex Teams API rate limits requests. If you receive a 429 Too Many Requests response from the API, your application will need to back off and retry the request after the duration specified in the Retry-After header in the response.

anchorAPI Errors

The Webex Teams API returns standard HTTP status codes for request responses. If an error occurs, more information will be provided in the response.

HTTP Response Codes


200OKSuccessful request with body content.
204No ContentSuccessful request without body content.
401UnauthorizedAuthentication credentials were missing or incorrect.
503Service UnavailableServer is overloaded with requests. Try again later.
Responses with Errors

When retrieving multiple resources from the API, such as listing multiple Rooms or People, individual resources which should be included in the response may not be included because of an error. If any partial failures occur, the API will respond with a 200 OK and the response body will contain the entire list of resources, including the individual resources which could not be retrieved.

Resources which encounter errors during retrieval will include an errors object. This errors object will contain a specific error code and reason describing why the individual resource could not be returned in the request. Failures encountered during the request may be the result of a temporary issue, such as the inability to contact an on-premise key management server in a timely manner, or something more permanent. The error code and description will provide more detail about the error.

The errors object should only be present in the response if at least one resource could not be retrieved.

Example Response with Errors

The sample JSON below demonstrates how an error encountered while retrieving one room in a list of rooms is presented:

  "items": [
      "id": "Y2lzY29zcGFyazovL3VzL1JPT00vYmJjZWIxYWQtNDNmMS0zYjU4LTkxNDctZjE0YmIwYzRkMTU0",
      "title": "Project Unicorn - Sprint 0",
      "type": "group",
      "isLocked": true,
      "teamId": "Y2lzY29zcGFyazovL3VzL1JPT00vNjRlNDVhZTAtYzQ2Yi0xMWU1LTlkZjktMGQ0MWUzNDIxOTcz",
      "lastActivity": "2016-04-21T19:12:48.920Z",
      "created": "2016-04-21T19:01:55.966Z"
      "id": "Y2lzY29zcGFyazovL3VzL1JPT00vNTIxN0EyMzYtNDQzQi00NThELTkzNjAtRDRFOTMyMTBBNUU5",
      "title": "eyJhbGciOiIiLCJraWQiOiIiLCJlbmMiOiIifQ....",
      "errors": {
        "title": {
          "code": "kms_failure",
          "reason": "Key management server failed to respond appropriately. For more information: https://developer.ciscospark.com/errors.html"
Error Codes

The following table describes the errors which may be returned by the API:

kms_failureKey management server failed to respond appropriately.The Webex Teams API is unable to contact the appropriate encryption key management server (KMS), or the KMS did not respond in a timely manner, and could not retrieve the requested resource. Try your request again later.
SSL Connection Errors

The Webex Teams API uses the Server Name Indication (SNI) extension to TLS/SSL. If your SSL client fails to connect to the API with an error such as hostname 'api.ciscospark.com' doesn't match either of '*.wbx2.com', 'wbx2.com', your client may not support SNI. Verify that your client supports the SNI extension. If your client does not support the SNI extension, then upgrade your client to a version which will support it and try your request again. Never configure your client to ignore SSL connection errors.

SNI support was implemented in these versions of the following common libraries and tools:

  • Java 1.7
  • PHP 5.3
  • Python 2.7.9, Python 3
  • Ruby (net/http) 2.0
  • cURL 7.18.1
  • wget 1.14
Last updated: March 25, 2019