Pure API - Getting data in and out of Pure

The Pure API a is also known as a Write API or CRUD API and is a powerful way of both extracting data and write data directly into Pure.

The Pure API provides a secure web services API for using and managing research information data in Pure. The API enables a broad range of use-cases for interacting with research information, from anonymous Open Data scenarios to enabling the next generation Pure admin.

To cater to this broad spectrum of use cases, the Pure API is implemented as a REST API, conceptually exposing the Pure model as a graph of interconnected, self-contained resources. Depending on the configured permission and sharing model, a service user interacts with the resources using standard HTTP methods (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE) a commonly used model with well-defined semantics. The intention of this choice is to reduce the friction for new service users, enabling them to quickly and safely be able to implement their use-case on top of the Pure API.

The API specification is defined and published as an OpenAPI 3 specification, enabling service users to quickly generate a client while at the same time providing developers with useful documentation on the API and its semantics. As the API evolves naturally over time, we use the contract to ensure that we remain backward compatible and only in extreme cases introduce a new version of an endpoint, this should minimize the necessary maintenance burden of properly implemented clients. To ensure that older clients do not unintentionally delete parts of the entity representations when interfacing with newer server API's, all PUT requests will transparently apply JSON merge patch (RFC7386) semantics.

To guarantee authorized access and management of Pure resources all API requests are performed in the context of a defined user, whether this is a researcher managing their output authenticated by the institution SSO and authorized by Pure, read-only access of only public data as an anonymous user or a locally developed integration component using the Pure API with a system user. Configuring a sharing context appropriate for a specific use-case not only involves coupling the requests to a specific user, but also whether there are further content-type or action restrictions and whether there are any field-level restrictions.