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Make requests to the Airflow REST API

You can use the Airflow REST API to automate Airflow workflows in your Deployments on Astro. For example, you can externally trigger a DAG run without accessing your Deployment directly by making an HTTP request in Python or cURL to the dagRuns endpoint in the Airflow REST API.

To test Airflow API calls in a local Airflow environment running with the Astro CLI, see Test and Troubleshoot Locally.

Prerequisites​

Step 1: Retrieve an access token and Deployment URL​

Calling the Airflow REST API for a Deployment requires:

  • An Astro access token.
  • A Deployment URL.

Retrieve an access token​

To retrieve an Astro access token, run the following API request with your Deployment API key ID and secret:

curl --location --request POST "https://auth.astronomer.io/oauth/token" \
        --header "content-type: application/json" \
        --data-raw '{
            "client_id": "<api-key-id>",
            "client_secret": "<api-key-secret>",
            "audience": "astronomer-ee",
            "grant_type": "client_credentials"}'
info

Note that this token is only valid for 24 hours. If you need to call the Airflow API only once, you can retrieve a single 24-hour access token at https://cloud.astronomer.io/token in the Cloud UI.

If you've configured a CI/CD process and you want to avoid generating an access token manually, Astronomer recommends that you automate the API request to generate a new access token.

Retrieve the Deployment URL​

The Deployment URL includes the name of your Organization and a short Deployment ID. For example, a Deployment with an ID dhbhijp0 that is part of an Organization called mycompany would have a Deployment URL of https://mycompany.astronomer.run/dhbhijp0.

  1. In the Cloud UI, select a Workspace and then a Deployment.
  2. Click Open Airflow.
  3. When the Airflow UI opens in your browser, copy the URL up to /home.

Step 2: Make an Airflow API request​

You can execute requests against any endpoint that is listed in the Airflow REST API reference.

To make a request based on Airflow documentation, make sure to:

  • Use the Astro access token from Step 1 for authentication.
  • Replace https://airflow.apache.org with your Deployment URL from Step 1.

Example API Requests​

The following are common examples of Airflow REST API requests that you can run against a Deployment on Astro.

List DAGs​

To retrieve a list of all DAGs in a Deployment, you can run a GET request to the dags endpoint

cURL​

curl -X GET <your-deployment-url>/api/v1/dags \
   -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' \
   -H 'Authorization: Bearer <your-access-token>'

Python​

import requests
token = "<your-access-token>"
deployment_url = "<your-deployment-url>"
response = requests.get(
   url=f"{deployment_url}/api/v1/dags",
   headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {token}"}
)
print(response.json())
# Prints data about all DAGs in your Deployment

Trigger a DAG run​

You can trigger a DAG run by executing a POST request to Airflow's dagRuns endpoint.

This will trigger a DAG run for the DAG you specify with a logical_date value of NOW(), which is equivalent to clicking the Play button in the main DAGs view of the Airflow UI.

cURL​

curl -X POST <your-deployment-url>/api/v1/dags/<your-dag-id>/dagRuns \
   -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
   -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' \
   -H 'Authorization: Bearer <your-access-token>' \
   -d '{}'

Python​

import requests
token = "<your-access-token>"
deployment_url = "<your-deployment-url>"
dag_id = "<your-dag-id>"
response = requests.post(
    url=f"{deployment_url}/api/v1/dags/{dag_id}/dagRuns",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {token}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    },
    data='{}'
)
print(response.json())
# Prints metadata of the DAG run that was just triggered

Trigger a DAG run by date​

You can also specify a logical_date at the time in which you wish to trigger the DAG run by passing the logical_date with the desired timestamp with the request's data field. The timestamp string is expressed in UTC and must be specified in the format "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ", where:

  • YYYY represents the year.
  • MM represents the month.
  • DD represents the day.
  • HH represents the hour.
  • MM represents the minute.
  • SS represents the second.
  • Z stands for "Zulu" time, which represents UTC.

cURL​

curl -v -X POST <your-deployment-url>/api/v1/dags/<your-dag-id>/dagRuns \
   -H 'Authorization: Bearer <your-access-token>' \
   -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' \
   -H 'content-type: application/json' \
   -d '{"logical_date":"2022-11-16T11:34:00Z"}'

Python​

Using Python:

import requests
token = "<your-access-token>"
deployment_url = "<your-deployment-url>"
dag_id = "<your-dag-id>"
response = requests.post(
    url=f"{deployment_url}/api/v1/dags/{dag_id}/dagRuns",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {token}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    },
    data='{"logical_date": "2021-11-16T11:34:01Z"}'
)
print(response.json())
# Prints metadata of the DAG run that was just triggered

Pause a DAG​

You can pause a DAG by executing a PATCH command against the dag endpoint.

Replace <your-dag-id> with your own value.

cURL​

curl -X PATCH <your-deployment-url>/api/v1/dags/<your-dag-id> \
   -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
   -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' \
   -H 'Authorization: Bearer <your-access-token>' \
   -d '{"is_paused": true}'

Python​

import requests
token = "<your-access-token>"
deployment_url = "<your-deployment-url>"
dag_id = "<your-dag-id>"
response = requests.patch(
    url=f"{deployment_url}/api/v1/dags/{dag_id}",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {token}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    },
    data='{"is_paused": true}'
)
print(response.json())
# Prints data about the DAG with id <dag-id>

Trigger DAG runs across Deployments​

You can use the Airflow REST API to make a request in one Deployment that triggers a DAG run in a different Deployment. This is sometimes necessary when you have interdependent workflows across multiple Deployments. On Astro, you can do this for any Deployment in any Workspace or cluster.

This topic has guidelines on how to trigger a DAG run, but you can modify the example DAG provided to trigger any request that's supported in the Airflow REST API.

  1. On the target Deployment, create an API key ID and API key secret. See Create an API key.

  2. On the triggering Deployment, set the API key ID and API key secret from the target Deployment as KEY_ID and KEY_SECRET environment variables in the Cloud UI. Make KEY_SECRET secret. See Set environment variables on Astro.

  3. In your DAG, write a task called get-token that uses your Deployment API key ID and secret to make a request to the Astronomer API that retrieves the access token that's required for authentication to the Airflow API. In another task called trigger_external_dag, use the access token to make a request to the dagRuns endpoint of the Airflow REST API. Make sure to replace <target-deployment-url> with your own value. For example:

    import requests
    from datetime import datetime
    import os
    from airflow.decorators import dag, task
    KEY_ID = os.environ.get("KEY_ID")
    KEY_SECRET = os.environ.get("KEY_SECRET")
    AIRFLOW_URL = "<target-deployment-url>"
    @dag(schedule="@daily",
        start_date=datetime(2022, 1, 1),
        catchup=False)
    def triggering_dag():
        @task
        def get_token():
            response = requests.post("https://auth.astronomer.io/oauth/token",
                                    json={"audience": "astronomer-ee",
                                        "grant_type": "client_credentials",
                                        "client_id": {KEY_ID},
                                        "client_secret": {KEY_SECRET})
            return response.json()["access_token"]
        @task
        def trigger_external_dag(token):
            dag_id = "target"
            response = requests.post(
                url=f"{AIRFLOW_URL}/api/v1/dags/{dag_id}/dagRuns",
                headers={
                    "Authorization": f"Bearer {token}",
                    "Content-Type": "application/json"
                },
                data='{"logical_date": "' + datetime.utcnow().isoformat().split(".")[0] + 'Z"}'
            )
            print(response.json())
        trigger_external_dag(get_token())
    a = triggering_dag()
    ```