AI agents - Advanced make server-to-server HTTP requests to your backend system. The requests are initiated when a user path triggers an integration node in their dialogue, and the mapped returned data is stored and available for the duration of the AI agents - Advanced session.
Technical Requirements of your backend API
API Types
Your API must be one of the following architectures:
- REST
- GraphQL
Response
Your API response must follow the general requirements:
- Provide an API response within 30 seconds
- Preferably return JSON format
Authentication
From AI agents - Advanced side, we can authenticate using any of the following:
- API key
- Bearer token
- Expiration token
- Basic auth
- OAuth 2.0
- IP safelists / allowlist
Self Checklist
The self-checklist below contains questions and information that will help you build a robust API:
- Is the API "searchable" with data that a typical user would know, or with data passed through from your CRM?
- Does the data in the API response contain information that satisfies your use case?
- If your use case requires data from multiple systems, can you consolidate them into a middle layer?
- Is it known when the API throws a 200, a 400, and a 404 HTTP status code?
- What does the API return if the input is invalid or incorrect?
- Does your system set an API rate limit?
- How long does your system take to send a response?
Please be ready to provide:
• Documentation: Auth, API request query / body and response schema
• (Optionally a Postman collection.)
• Test data for the most common outcomes.
Read more about the onboarding plan in the previous article, Custom integration - preparation.