API & webhooks
Bring contacts and events in programmatically: the Instasent Ingest API and the webhook platforms. What the panel sets up for you — the source, its credentials and the stream log — and where the technical contract lives in the Developers zone.
When you want contacts and events to flow in programmatically and in real time, you use the Instasent Ingest API or one of the webhook platforms. This page explains what the panel does for you — it creates the source, shows its credentials, and streams a log of what arrives — and where the full technical contract lives.
The Instasent Ingest API
The Ingest API imports contacts and events using Instasent's own format. Creating it as a data source gives you a setup screen with everything you need to send data:
Contacts endpointurl/v1/project/{uid}/datasource/{id}/stream/contacts — where you post contacts.
Events endpointurl/v1/project/{uid}/datasource/{id}/stream/events — where you post events.
Project UIDstringYour project's identifier, part of every endpoint URL.
Data source IDstringThis source's identifier — each source has its own.
Secret tokenstringThe token that authenticates calls to this source. Each source has its own.
The setup screen also lists the accepted attributes and accepted events, and shows a stream log of the incoming data so you can confirm it's arriving.
Payload shape
Each source receives data keyed by contact. A contact payload identifies the contact; an event payload adds the event name and its parameters:
{ "contact_id": "..." }{ "contact_id": "...", "event": "...", "parameters": { } }Every webhook and Ingest API source has its own data source ID and secret token, so you can revoke or rotate one source without affecting the others.
Webhook platforms
The webhook platforms — Make, Zapier and the rest — are the no-code way to reach the same ingest stream. They use the same per-source credentials as the Ingest API above: on the connector's page, press Install and Instasent creates the source and shows you its Project UID, Secret token and Data source ID under Setup instructions — these are the credentials you take to the platform. (This is what the connectors guide calls a webhook platform.) You build a scenario or zap in the platform that posts to your source's stream endpoint, so you can wire Instasent up to tools that don't have a native connector. Each has its own connector page with the exact steps:
Send data from a Make scenario into the ingest stream.
ZapierSend data from a Zap into the ingest stream.
Where the panel ends and Developers begins
This page is about the panel side: creating the source, reading its credentials and payload shape, and watching the stream log. The full technical contract — the request and response schemas, every accepted field, error handling — lives in the Developers zone:
When you need to integrate at the code level, follow the Developers guide; come back here to create the source and read its credentials.