Quick Start Guide

This guide will help you make your first API request to the WP Engine Customer API. We’ll walk through the process of authenticating and retrieving a list of your sites.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

A WP Engine account
API credentials (see the Authentication guide)
Basic knowledge of making HTTP requests (using cURL, Postman, or your preferred programming language)

Step 1: Authenticate

For this quick start, we’ll use basic authentication with your API credentials. If you’re building a user-facing application, you should use OAuth 2.0 instead.

First, generate API credentials if you don’t already have them. You’ll need both an API user ID and password.

Step 2: Make Your First API Request

Let’s retrieve a list of your WP Engine sites. This is a simple GET request to the /sites endpoint:

curl -X GET https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/sites \
  -u "API_USER_ID:API_USER_PASSWORD"

Replace API_USER_ID and API_USER_PASSWORD with your actual API credentials.

Example Response

{
  "previous": "https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/sites?limit=100&offset=0",
  "next": "https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/sites?limit=100&offset=200",
  "count": 225,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": "28c78b6d-c2da-4f09-85f5-1ad588089b2d",
      "name": "Torque Magazine",
      "account": {
        "id": "eeda3227-9a39-46ae-9e14-20958bb4e6c9"
      },
      "tags": [
        "production"
      ],
      "installs": []
    }
  ]
}

Step 3: Get Site Details

Now, let’s get more details about a specific site. Use the site ID from the previous response:

curl -X GET https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/sites/28c78b6d-c2da-4f09-85f5-1ad588089b2d \
  -u "API_USER_ID:API_USER_PASSWORD"

Example Response

{
  "id": "28c78b6d-c2da-4f09-85f5-1ad588089b2d",
  "name": "Torque Magazine",
  "account": {
    "id": "eeda3227-9a39-46ae-9e14-20958bb4e6c9"
  },
  "tags": [
    "production"
  ],
  "installs": []
}

Step 4: List Your WordPress Installations

To work with backups and other install-specific operations, you’ll need to get your WordPress installations:

curl -X GET https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs \
  -u "API_USER_ID:API_USER_PASSWORD"

Example Response

{
  "previous": "https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs?limit=100&offset=0",
  "next": "https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs?limit=100&offset=200",
  "count": 225,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": "294deacc-d8b8-4005-82c4-0727ba8ddde0",
      "name": "torquemag",
      "account": {
        "id": "eeda3227-9a39-46ae-9e14-20958bb4e6c9"
      },
      "php_version": "7.0",
      "status": "active",
      "cname": "mywebsite.wpengine.com"
    }
  ]
}

Step 5: Create a Backup

Let’s create a backup of your WordPress installation:

curl -X POST https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs/294deacc-d8b8-4005-82c4-0727ba8ddde0/backups \
  -u "API_USER_ID:API_USER_PASSWORD" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "description": "Quick start backup example",
    "notification_emails": ["your-email@example.com"]
  }'

Example Response

{
  "id": "28c78b6d-c2da-4f09-85f5-1ad588089b2d",
  "status": "requested"
}

Step 6: Create an Account User

Let’s create a new user for your account. You’ll need your account ID from the previous responses:

curl -X POST https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/accounts/eeda3227-9a39-46ae-9e14-20958bb4e6c9/account_users \
  -u "API_USER_ID:API_USER_PASSWORD" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "user": {
      "account_id": "eeda3227-9a39-46ae-9e14-20958bb4e6c9",
      "first_name": "John",
      "last_name": "Doe",
      "email": "john.doe@example.com",
      "roles": "partial"
    }
  }'

Example Response

{
  "message": "Your change was successful.",
  "account_user": {
    "user_id": "28c78b6d-c2da-4f09-85f5-1ad588089b2d",
    "account_id": "eeda3227-9a39-46ae-9e14-20958bb4e6c9",
    "first_name": "John",
    "last_name": "Doe",
    "email": "john.doe@example.com",
    "phone": null,
    "invite_accepted": false,
    "mfa_enabled": false,
    "roles": "partial"
  }
}

Step 7: Check Backup Status

You can check the status of your backup:

curl -X GET https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs/294deacc-d8b8-4005-82c4-0727ba8ddde0/backups/28c78b6d-c2da-4f09-85f5-1ad588089b2d \
  -u "API_USER_ID:API_USER_PASSWORD"

Example Response

{
  "id": "28c78b6d-c2da-4f09-85f5-1ad588089b2d",
  "status": "requested"
}

Next Steps

Congratulations! You’ve made your first API requests to the WP Engine Customer API. Here are some next steps:

Explore the API Reference to learn about all available endpoints
Check out the Examples for more complex use cases
Learn about Pagination for handling large result sets
Implement proper Error Handling in your application

Code Examples

Python

import requests
import base64

API_USER_ID = "YOUR_API_USER_ID"
API_PASSWORD = "YOUR_API_PASSWORD"
BASE_URL = "https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1"

# Create basic auth header
auth_string = base64.b64encode(f'{API_USER_ID}:{API_PASSWORD}'.encode()).decode()
headers = {
    "Authorization": f"Basic {auth_string}"
}

# Get all sites
response = requests.get(f"{BASE_URL}/sites", headers=headers)
response.raise_for_status()
sites = response.json()
print(sites)

# Get specific site
if sites["results"]:
    site_id = sites["results"][0]["id"]
    response = requests.get(f"{BASE_URL}/sites/{site_id}", headers=headers)
    response.raise_for_status()
    site_details = response.json()
    print(site_details)

JavaScript (Node.js)

const axios = require('axios');

const API_USER_ID = 'YOUR_API_USER_ID';
const API_PASSWORD = 'YOUR_API_PASSWORD';
const BASE_URL = 'https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1';

const headers = {
  'Authorization': 'Basic ' + Buffer.from(`${API_USER_ID}:${API_PASSWORD}`).toString('base64')
};

async function makeRequests() {
  try {
    // Get all sites
    const sitesResponse = await axios.get(`${BASE_URL}/sites`, { headers });
    console.log(sitesResponse.data);

    // Get specific site
    if (sitesResponse.data.results.length > 0) {
      const siteId = sitesResponse.data.results[0].id;
      const siteResponse = await axios.get(`${BASE_URL}/sites/${siteId}`, { headers });
      console.log(siteResponse.data);
    }
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Error:', error.response ? error.response.data : error.message);
  }
}

makeRequests();

PHP

<?php
$apiUserId = 'YOUR_API_USER_ID';
$apiPassword = 'YOUR_API_PASSWORD';
$baseUrl = 'https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1';

$auth = base64_encode($apiUserId . ':' . $apiPassword);
$headers = [
    'Authorization: Basic ' . $auth
];

// Get all sites
$ch = curl_init($baseUrl . '/sites');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);

$response = curl_exec($ch);
$sites = json_decode($response, true);
print_r($sites);

// Get specific site
if (!empty($sites['results'])) {
    $siteId = $sites['results'][0]['id'];
    $ch = curl_init($baseUrl . '/sites/' . $siteId);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);

    $response = curl_exec($ch);
    $siteDetails = json_decode($response, true);
    print_r($siteDetails);
}

curl_close($ch);
?>

Common Error Responses

When working with the API, you may encounter these common error responses:

401 Authentication Required

{
  "message": "Authentication required"
}

This means your API credentials are missing or invalid. Double-check your API_USER_ID and API_PASSWORD.

403 Insufficient Permissions

{
  "message": "Insufficient permissions to access this resource"
}

Your API credentials don’t have permission to access the requested resource.

404 Resource Not Found

{
  "message": "Resource not found"
}

The requested resource (site, install, backup, etc.) doesn’t exist or you don’t have access to it.

429 Rate Limit Exceeded

{
  "message": "Rate limit exceeded - too many requests"
}

You’ve made too many requests in a short period. Wait a moment before making additional requests.

Tips for Success

Use UUIDs: All resource IDs in the WP Engine API are UUIDs (like 28c78b6d-c2da-4f09-85f5-1ad588089b2d)
Handle Pagination: Most list endpoints return paginated results with previous, next, and count fields
Check Status Codes: Always check HTTP status codes and handle errors appropriately
Store Credentials Securely: Never hardcode API credentials in your source code
Use HTTPS: All API requests must use HTTPS

Ready to dive deeper? Check out the complete API reference for detailed documentation on all available endpoints.