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August 15, 2026 · 2 min read

Reading SENAITE data with the JSON API in 30 seconds

One curl, one UID, a full sample record back. The shortest useful tour of the SENAITE JSON API for developers and integrators.

Reading SENAITE data with the JSON API in 30 seconds

Every SENAITE object has a UID, a 32-character identifier that stays stable for the object’s lifetime. Give the JSON API that UID and you get everything the object knows about itself.

The endpoint

All JSON API paths hang off a single base URL:

http://localhost:8080/senaite/@@API/senaite/v1/

Fetching an object by UID is a plain GET:

curl -u admin:admin \
  "http://localhost:8080/senaite/@@API/senaite/v1/samples/<UID>"

The response is a JSON document with every field the object exposes. Client, sample type, date sampled, analyses, workflow state. No SQL, no ZODB queries, no add-on required.

Searching without a UID

Don’t have a UID? Ask a catalog. The samples endpoint accepts query parameters that behave like SENAITE’s built-in listings:

curl -u admin:admin \
  "http://localhost:8080/senaite/@@API/senaite/v1/samples?getClientSampleID=WATER-001"

Add ?limit=25&b_start=25 for pagination (the offset-based b_start is Plone convention, not page), or ?fields=id,review_state to project the response down to the fields you care about (comma-separated). Full field support is documented in the technical training.

Why this matters

The JSON API is how you plug SENAITE into everything else. A customer portal, a Grafana dashboard, an instrument integration service, a nightly export to a data lake. It’s one HTTP call away, comes with authentication out of the box, and doesn’t require you to run a single line of Python inside SENAITE to reach the data.

If your first integration project is stalling on a Zope question, it probably shouldn’t be. The JSON API is usually the shorter path.

For CRUD operations, pagination, and column filtering, see the technical training material. Every endpoint follows the same predictable shape.

Two people reviewing notes on paper next to a laptop

Bring this to your lab

Whether you are evaluating SENAITE, scaling it across sites, or wiring up instruments and monitoring, the team that wrote the platform is the team you talk to.