CiviCRM REST API v4

Name: CiviCRM REST API v4 API
Brand: CiviCRM REST API v4
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentCRMContact ManagementapiKey, bearer12 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Read and write CiviCRM contacts, activities, contributions, events, and memberships through a uniform entity-action REST interface. Useful for non-profit and member-organisation workflows that need to sync constituent data with external systems.

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the CiviCRM REST API v4 to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the CiviCRM REST API v4, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with CiviCRM REST API v4 API.

Search and filter CiviCRM contacts by any field through Contact/get

Create, update, or delete a constituent record with the corresponding Contact action

Log an activity (call, meeting, email) against one or more contacts via Activity/create

GET STARTED

Start building with CiviCRM REST API v4 API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Use Cases

Patterns agents use CiviCRM REST API v4 API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Donor and contribution sync to an external dashboard

Pull contributions on a schedule with POST /ajax/api4/Contribution/get and join them to contact records via POST /ajax/api4/Contact/get. This populates an external BI dashboard or accounting system with the same donor view CiviCRM uses internally, and the entity-action pattern means the same client code handles any other CiviCRM entity the team adds later.

Get all contributions in the last 7 days, look up each contact, and write a row to a Google Sheet

Membership renewal automation

Identify members whose memberships are about to expire by calling POST /ajax/api4/Membership/get with a date filter, look up their contact details, and trigger downstream actions - an email send, a payment link generation, or an Activity/create entry that records the outreach. CiviCRM's APIv4 supports the chaining of these calls without leaving the same entity-action vocabulary.

Find memberships expiring in the next 14 days, then create an Activity of type 'Renewal Reminder' against each member

Field-aware contact import

Before importing contacts from a spreadsheet, an agent can call POST /ajax/api4/{entity}/getFields with entity=Contact to discover the exact custom fields the site has configured. It then maps spreadsheet columns to those fields and submits Contact/create calls. This adapts to each CiviCRM installation's customisations without hard-coding field names.

Call Contact/getFields, map a CSV row to the returned schema, and POST a Contact/create for each row

Agent integration via Jentic

Through Jentic, an agent helping a non-profit can resolve intents like 'log a phone call with Maria' to the correct CiviCRM action without knowing the entity-action URL pattern. The X-Civi-Auth API key is held in the Jentic credential vault and only injected at execution time.

Search Jentic for 'create a CiviCRM activity', load the schema for Activity/create, and execute it with the parsed contact and call notes

Key Endpoints

12 endpoints — jentic publishes the only available openapi specification for civicrm rest api v4, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

POST

/ajax/api4/Contact/get

Search for contacts

POST

/ajax/api4/Contact/create

Create a contact

POST

/ajax/api4/Activity/create

Log an activity against contacts

POST

/ajax/api4/Contribution/get

Read contributions

POST

/ajax/api4/Membership/get

Read memberships

POST

/ajax/api4/Event/get

Read events

POST

/ajax/api4/{entity}/getFields

Discover fields on any entity

POST

/ajax/api4/{entity}/{action}

Generic entity-action endpoint

POST

/ajax/api4/Contact/get

Search for contacts

POST

/ajax/api4/Contact/create

Create a contact

POST

/ajax/api4/Activity/create

Log an activity against contacts

POST

/ajax/api4/Contribution/get

Read contributions

POST

/ajax/api4/Membership/get

Read memberships

Why Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

Your CiviCRM API key or bearer token is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'find a CiviCRM contact' or 'read contribution records', and Jentic returns the matching CiviCRM operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

Time to first call

FAQs

Specific to using CiviCRM REST API v4 API through Jentic.

Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for CiviCRM REST API v4?

CiviCRM does not publish an OpenAPI specification - the upstream reference is the APIv4 Explorer in the CiviCRM admin UI. Jentic generates and maintains this spec from the documented entity-action contract so AI agents and developers can call CiviCRM through structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started with Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer.

What authentication does the CiviCRM REST API use?

CiviCRM accepts an API key in the X-Civi-Auth header, or a bearer token, depending on how the site is configured. Through Jentic, the credential is stored encrypted and injected only at execution time so the agent never sees the raw key.

Can I create and update contacts with the CiviCRM API?

Yes. POST /ajax/api4/Contact/create creates a contact, /Contact/update modifies one, /Contact/get searches, and /Contact/delete removes one. The same entity-action pattern works for Activities, Contributions, Events, and Memberships.

How do I log an activity against a contact through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'create a CiviCRM activity'. Jentic returns POST /ajax/api4/Activity/create with its input schema (contact id, activity type, subject, status). Load the schema, fill in the values, and execute - no need to remember the entity-action URL convention.

What are the rate limits for the CiviCRM REST API?

Rate limits are not declared in the API itself - CiviCRM is typically self-hosted, so throughput is governed by the host's web server and database. For shared or hosted CiviCRM installs, check with the operator before running large bulk imports.

How does the entity-action URL pattern work?

Every APIv4 call has the shape POST /ajax/api4/{entity}/{action}. For example, /ajax/api4/Membership/get reads memberships and /ajax/api4/Event/create creates an event. You can discover the actions and fields available on a given entity by calling /ajax/api4/{entity}/getActions and /ajax/api4/{entity}/getFields.

Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the CiviCRM REST API?

Yes. Because Jentic One is self-hosted by you, your own rules decide which CiviCRM operations and credentials the agent can use. CiviCRM addresses records through the entity and action in the request, so you can scope the agent to just the operations it needs, such as reading contacts with Contact/get and contributions with Contribution/get. Write operations like Contact/create or Activity/create are not included unless you explicitly grant them.

CiviCRM REST API v4

Connect the CiviCRM REST API v4 to your agent

Capabilities

Start building with CiviCRM REST API v4 API

Use Cases

Key Endpoints

Why Jentic?

Related APIs

FAQs