Work with the Helix API
Connect application code to records and governed operations.
Establish the connection
- Obtain the base URL, API contract, supported version, and authentication instructions for your workspace.
- Create or authorize an integration identity with the minimum required access.
- Keep credentials in a server-side secret store and use HTTPS.
- Confirm the identity and workspace with a permitted read.
- Test the intended operation against representative sandbox records before using live data.
Read records with their meaning intact
Retain stable identifiers, record type, units, revision, lifecycle state, and source references when they are part of the response. A missing field may be unavailable or outside the caller’s scope; it should not automatically become zero or an empty business value.
Use the contract’s pagination and filtering rules. Do not assume the first response contains the whole collection or that pages remain unchanged during concurrent work.
Invoke the operation, then inspect its result
A consequential action is more than a field update. Submitting for review, releasing stock, approving a result, or reversing a movement may have prerequisites and create evidence. Use the documented operation and inspect its returned outcome.
| Outcome | Client behavior |
|---|---|
| Accepted / complete | Record the returned identity, state, and operation reference. |
| Validation or prerequisite failure | Show actionable details; preserve the user’s input. |
| Permission denied | Resolve authority rather than retrying with a broader shared account. |
| Conflict or stale revision | Refresh the record and reassess the original intent. |
| Timeout / unknown result | Reconcile the original attempt before repeating a consequential action. |
| Rate limit / transient failure | Honor the documented retry guidance and cap retries. |
Review the API contract before building
- Supported resources and operations, with request and response schemas.
- Authentication, scopes, tenant boundaries, and credential rotation.
- Pagination, filtering, limits, and error formats.
- Idempotency support, concurrency controls, and outcome lookup.
- Versioning, deprecation, and compatibility commitments.