Flask SDK Guide

To integrate your Flask application with APItoolkit, you need to use this SDK to monitor incoming traffic, aggregate the requests, and then send them to APItoolkit's servers. Kindly follow this guide to get started and learn about all the supported features of APItoolkit's Flask SDK.

Prerequisites

Ensure you have already completed the first three steps of the onboarding guide.

Installation

Kindly run the command below to install the SDK:

pip install apitoolkit-flask

Configuration

Next, initialize APItoolkit in your application's entry point (e.g., main.py), like so:

from flask import Flask
from apitoolkit_flask import APIToolkit

app = Flask(__name__)

# Initialize APItoolkit
apitoolkit = APIToolkit(
  api_key="{ENTER_YOUR_API_KEY_HERE}",
  debug=False,
  tags=["environment: production", "region: us-east-1"],
  service_version="v2.0"
)

@app.before_request
def before_request():
  apitoolkit.beforeRequest()

@app.after_request
def after_request(response):
  apitoolkit.afterRequest(response)
  return response
# END Initialize APItoolkit

@app.route('/hello', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def sample_route():
  return {"Hello": "World"}

app.run(debug=True)

In the configuration above, only the api_key option is required, but you can add the following optional fields:

Redacting Sensitive Data

If you have fields that are sensitive and should not be sent to APItoolkit servers, you can mark those fields to be redacted (the fields will never leave your servers).

To mark a field for redacting via this SDK, you need to add some additional fields to the apitoolkit configuration object with paths to the fields that should be redacted. There are three variables you can provide to configure what gets redacted, namely:

1. redact_headers: A list of HTTP header keys.
2. redact_response_body: A list of JSONPaths from the request body.
3. redact_request_body: A list of JSONPaths from the response body.

{
  "user": {
    "name": "John Martha",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "addresses": [
      {
        "street": "123 Main St",
        "city": "Anytown",
        "state": "CA",
        "zip": "12345"
      },
      {
        "street": "123 Main St",
        "city": "Anytown",
        "state": "CA",
        "zip": "12345"
      }
    ],
    "credit_card": {
      "number": "4111111111111111",
      "expiration": "12/28",
      "cvv": "123"
    }
  }
}

Examples of valid JSONPath expressions would be:

Here's an example of what the configuration would look like with redacted fields:

from flask import Flask
from apitoolkit_flask import APIToolkit

app = Flask(__name__)

redact_headers = ["content-type", "Authorization", "HOST"]
redact_response_body = ["$.user.email", "$.user.addresses"]
redact_request_body = ["$.users[*].email", "$.users[*].credit_card"]

apitoolkit = APIToolkit(
  api_key='{ENTER_YOUR_API_KEY_HERE}',
  redact_headers=redact_headers,
  redact_response_body=redact_response_body,
  redact_request_body=redact_request_body
)

@app.before_request
def before_request():
  apitoolkit.beforeRequest()

@app.after_request
def after_request(response):
  apitoolkit.afterRequest(response)
  return response

@app.route('/hello', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def sample_route():
  return {"Hello": "World"}

app.run(debug=True)

Error Reporting

With APItoolkit, you can track and report different unhandled or uncaught errors, API issues, and anomalies at different parts of your application. This will help you associate more detail and context from your backend with any failing customer request.

To manually report specific errors at different parts of your application, use the report_error() function from the apitoolkit_flask module, passing in the request and error, like so:

from flask import Flask, request
from apitoolkit_flask import APIToolkit, report_error

app = Flask(__name__)

apitoolkit = APIToolkit(api_key="{ENTER_YOUR_API_KEY_HERE}")

@app.before_request
def before_request():
  apitoolkit.beforeRequest()

@app.after_request
def after_request(response):
  apitoolkit.afterRequest(response)
  return response

@app.route('/', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def sample_route():
  try:
    value = 1 / 0
    return {"zero_division": value}
  except Exception as e:
    # Report the error to APItoolkit
    report_error(request, e)
    return {"message": "Something went wrong"}

if __name__ == "__main__":
  app.run(debug=True)

Monitoring Outgoing Requests

Outgoing requests are external API calls you make from your API. By default, APItoolkit monitors all requests users make from your application and they will all appear in the API Log Explorer page. However, you can separate outgoing requests from others and explore them in the Outgoing Integrations page, alongside the incoming request that triggered them.

To monitor outgoing HTTP requests from your application, use the observe_request() function from the apitoolkit_flask module, passing in the request argument, like so:

from flask import Flask, request
from apitoolkit_flask import APIToolkit, observe_request

app = Flask(__name__)

apitoolkit = APIToolkit(api_key="{ENTER_YOUR_API_KEY_HERE}")

@app.before_request
def before_request():
  apitoolkit.beforeRequest()

@app.after_request
def after_request(response):
  apitoolkit.afterRequest(response)
  return response

@app.route('/', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def sample_route():
  resp = observe_request(request).get("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/2")
  return resp.read()

if __name__ == "__main__":
  app.run(debug=True)

The observe_request() function accepts a required request argument, and the following optional arguments: