This guide describes how to use the API endpoints of SciLifeLab Serve to fetch information about the platform, lists of the public apps, information about individual apps. To follow this guide you are expected to be comfortable with HTTP requests, query parameters, and JSON responses.

You can make an API request by simply opening a particular URL in your web browser or by using a terminal tool like curl. In response, you will always receive a JSON formatted output.

Basic API endpoints

Health check

GET https://serve.scilifelab.se/openapi/v1/are-you-there

Simplest API endpoint useful for testing and verifications. Returns "true" if system is up and running.

System version

GET https://serve.scilifelab.se/openapi/v1/system-version

Returns the current version of SciLifeLab Serve. Response includes system-version, build-date, image-tag

API information

GET https://serve.scilifelab.se/openapi/v1/api-info

The Open API basic API information endpoint, in accordance to the standard. Includes info about the latest API version.

Fetching public apps

List public apps

GET https://serve.scilifelab.se/openapi/v1/public-apps

GET https://serve.scilifelab.se/openapi/v1/public-apps?limit=5

This endpoint gets a list of apps that are publicly available and listed in the public app catalogue of SciLifeLab Serve. It returns a list of app information, ordered by date created from the most recent to the oldest. If needed, you can limit the number of returned apps by adding a limit filter.

Returned fields (per app)

Each list item includes, at minimum:

• id
• name
• url
• description
• created_on
• updated_on
• access
• k8s_user_app_status
• latest_user_action
• app_status
• app_type
• table_field.url (will be depreciated in the next version of the API)

Example output

The response contains an data object with:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 123,
      "name": "Some Public App",
      "url": "https://…",
      "description": "…",
      "created_on": "2025-12-01T10:00:00Z",
      "updated_on": "2025-12-10T12:00:00Z",
      "access": "public",
      "latest_user_action": "…",
      "k8s_user_app_status": "Running",
      "app_status": "Running",
      "app_type": "Streamlit",
      "table_field": {"url": "https://…"}
    }
  ]
}

Errors

• HTTP 403 if limit is invalid.
• HTTP 500 if the system is unable to collect the list of public apps.

Retrieve info about a single public app

GET https://serve.scilifelab.se/openapi/v1/public-apps/<APP_ID>

This endpoint retrieves information about a single public app instance. The requested URL needs to include the ID of the application in the SciLifeLab Serve database.

Returned fields

The response contains an app object with:

• id
• name
• url
• description
• created_on
• updated_on
• access
• k8s_user_app_status
• app_status
• app_type

Errors

The endpoint returns HTTP 404 in the following cases:

• No app exists with the given APP_ID.
• The app exists but is of an incorrect type.
• The app is not public.
• The app has been deleted.

If APP_ID is missing or less than 1, the API returns HTTP 403.

Unexpected failures retrieving the app return HTTP 500.

Content statistics

GET https://serve.scilifelab.se/openapi/v1/content-stats

This endpoint allows to get aggregated statistics about usage of SciLifeLab Serve.

Returned fields

• stats_date_utz
• stats_success
• stats_message
• stats_notes
• n_projects
• n_users
• n_apps
• n_apps_public
• apps_by_type
• new_users_by_year
• users_by_university
• apps_by_image_registry

Errors

The returned value of stats_success indicates whether all statistic sub-queries succeeded. If statistics gathering fails, each error message is added to and displayed in the value of stats_message.

Numeric counts default to '-1' if the related computation fails.