Anytype API research: share your use-cases with devs

[vas3k]

Hey, everybody! My name is Vasily, I'm a new member of Anytype team. We've recently started a research about API implementation for Anytype. The feature that you all and we have been wanting for a long time!

Because of our p2p and e2ee architecture, as you can imagine, the API in Anytype is not just a matter of coding a couple of REST-endpoints on a "server". Things are going to be a little trickier in our lives :)

To better understand what we should focus on first and not make an “abstract API” that nobody can use, we want to collect some use-cases from you.

Please tell us what you could use the API in Anytype for?

What bots, integrations, background services would you like to see first or code yourself? Maybe you've had an idea in your head for a useful integration for a long time, share it too!

Rules:

• 1 top-level comment = 1 use-case. You can write several comments but please don't put them all in one, so that voting is cleaner.
• Vote for the use-cases! So we'll see which ones are more in demand.
• Feel free to discuss details, ideas and technical implementation in the 2nd level comments.
• No off-topic please. If you want to discuss APIs in general, please open another discussion.

Template:

Use the template for better readability. We're going to refer to this thread a lot, so it would be nice to have it clean and organized.

**Short description of your use-case or idea**

More details about what you're trying to accomplish, how API integration would help you, what you've tried so far...

Related discussions

• https://github.com/orgs/anyproto/discussions/210
• https://github.com/orgs/anyproto/discussions/211

[rushthomas]

Use Case: Triggering the creation of calendar events on Google Calendar when certain criteria are met. For example, if an object is Type:task and has a "Date" relation, create a google calendar event, titled with the Object Title.

[schmoelder]

While at it, also consider other protocols such as CalDAV, exchange etc.

[mishachepi]

Creating an object with relations

I think this is obviously the basic functionality that is needed. You need to be able to create an object with a specific type and specific relations and content.

[Onefabis]

Allow to save private channels from telegram with https://core.telegram.org/api/takeout into space where each post of that channel is object (note or page)

[alexjp]

Update other relations when one relation changes

Currently, I have tasks set up in a way, that when I click "DONE" checkbox on the layout, I have to go change the "Status" select option to "DONE" and set the "DONE Date" to today.

Would like an API that when I:

• Click Layout DONE from unchecked to checked

  • sets "Status" select option do "DONE"
  • sets "DONE DATE" to "Today"

• Click Layout DONE from checked to unchecked

  • sets "Status" select option do "TODO" (only if "Status" is on "DONE")
  • clears "DONE DATE"

• Click "Status" select option to "DONE"

  • Set Layout DONE to Checked
  • Set "DONE DATE" to Today

• Click "Status" select option to other option than "DONE"

  • Set Layout DONE to Unchecked
  • clears "DONE DATE"

• Click "DONE DATE" to Today

  • Set Layout DONE to Checked
  • sets "Status" select option do "DONE"

• Click "DONE DATE" to "empty/cleared"

  • Set Layout DONE to Unchecked
  • sets "Status" select option do "TODO" (only if "Status" is on "DONE")

[iBerlioz]

I believe that's not a part of API, but definitely the feature is really promising. I'd suggest you post it in feature requests

[nikkitavr]

buut.. if api will provide a kind of webhooks for events + basic crud "endpoints", devs could implement automations like these by his own

[wawax]

bulk import of data coming from a database into a collection.
creation of relation between objects using the API

[beaucronin]

bulk import is my dealbreaker -- if I can do this, including making the proper object relations, my usage of Anytype is completely transformed

[mishachepi]

Get objects filtered by object_type and relation

My use-case: I have an object "day" with relation "date". I need to get this object filtered by current date (my next steps: parse it -> send it to TG and mail in the morning).

[MikeyP888]

Use Anytype with Make.com for integration with other apps and automation. For example, I would want to use make.com to fetch data from anytype, then make.com would perform some action, then add a completed date or checkmark or change a single / multi select or tag in anytype.

For example, let's say I want to use make.com and Anytype to help me write articles with ChatGPT. In Anytype, I might have a set of article titles with rough notes in the body of the object. I would use make.com to find the set, take the notes and title of the article, send it to ChatGPT, which would create an article . Then perhaps the completed article would be saved in Anytype ready to publish. Or it would be marked as complete and a date added to Anytype.

[mishachepi]

I have a similar use case.
There are many automation tools, n8n, Zapier, IFTTT. To use API to integrate with this service would be awesome.
To find many use cases you can check:
Supported Actions paragraph for notion in n8n
Supported triggers and actions for notion in Zaiper

[MikeyP888]

Yeah, I haven't tried n8n. My favourite is make.com. To the developers: if you do focus your efforts on these tools, please don't just focus on Zapier (like some apps do), it is super expensive!

[wawax]

there's also 2 new open source automation alternatives: actievepieces and automatisch

[andyjsiegel]

i highly recommend Pipedream. It's Make, but on steroids. Way more generous free plan and more flexible too.

[iBerlioz]

Totally support. n8n and etc compatibility would boost possible use cases

[MikeyP888]

Another API use case I would like is using Anytype with Raycast (on Mac). For example, I would like to use it to create global keyboard shortcuts for things like creating a specific type of object or going to a specific page or set

[andyjsiegel]

Raycast Integration would be incredible, I definitely plan to work on that once the API is released. However, do note that you can click the 3 dot menu in the top right and click copy link, then make a quick link with it. Then, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to open a specific page already!

[schmoelder]

Sync Tasks with Github/Lab Issues / PRs

When using Anytype for task management, it would be very helpful to have some connection with the issues / PRs of certain Github/Lab repos that I'm working on. E.g. I would like to see them in my daily to do overview. See due dates, tags etc.

[avinash539]

It would be great if it supports Atlassian applications like jira, bitbucket, confluence

[schmoelder]

Sync bookmarks with Firefox

I'm aiming at converging all my knowledge in one place. So storing bookmarks in Anytype makes sense to me. However, I still need the bookmarks in my actual browser. Syncing them via an API would simplify this.

[avinash539]

not just only firefox but other browsers as well like chrome, edge, arc

[Inuart]

An "Eat your own dogfood" API. That is, build an API that the Anytype team is forced to use to rewrite the Desktop and mobile apps.

There should be no other way to interact with the Go core. No internal APIs.

That's the best way to ensure we get an API that's fully featured and of great quality for everyone.

[vas3k]

That's our plan too :) A proper API will allow us to develop side-plugins, importers and other integrations without disturbing the core-team.

[Inuart]

Just the plugins? I meant to say "use the API for everything". Like, rebuild the desktop and phone apps using only the API to interact with the Go core.

I should rephrase my comment to make it clearer.

[vas3k]

Noted. That's why we're asking for actual use-cases

[Self-Perfection]

Use anytype as a backend for pomodoro/time tracking widget

I imagine something like reimplementing of https://intend.do/ on top of Anytype. With desktop widget that allows to:

1. Select one tasks from today plan as active or create new
2. View how much time is left in my current working session (like pomodoro timer)
3. Stores in each task how much time/pomodoros were spent on this task
4. Let group tasks by projects (goals in intend.do terms) and gather aggregated stats on how much time were spent on each task for longer time durations, like weeks or months.

[ChristianHaake]

Hi!

using low / no-code solutions to automate monkey work:

• create / modify objects and content
• connect different applications

I'm not a coder, but I would need a way to add Links to folder/files in nextcloud or o365. the view need to stay synced.
The goal is to have a one contextual view to have all the information in one place. My notes etc as well as the files

[iBerlioz]

n8n/make.com solutions mentioned above

[andyjsiegel]

Integrating Anytype into Tasker, Raycast, and Pipedream would be my top 3 so I can integrate data from external sources.

[mishachepi]

Spaced repetition of specific notes. Like Anki.

The implementation will be carried out using some third-party tool, for example: no-code tool n8n (if script execution is not added to Anytype in the future). From Anytype API, it is required to receive objects by tag, and change the relation field with date of the last repetition.

[lazjedi]

Google Drive and other cloud services integration

As in Notion, we should be able to add files in Google Drive or other cloud service as embeds to our pages.

Like this;

[ebanDev]

Quickly capture infos

I already created a software using the API that allows me to quickly capture thoughts or literally anything to AnyType from CLI I just publised it here : https://github.com/ebanDev/AnytypeCapture

Hope that helps ! :)

[sreeharsha-rav]

There is going to be a lot of local data, so I want to develop custom AI features with the help of local LLMs, if Anytype is not going to allow integration for Local LLMs in the future, it's not something I would expect to use long term.

[ZMensRain]

Use case:

Publishing new html documents to a website when new pages and notes are created.

Further information

I would like to be able to create an object (mainly pages and notes) and mark it with a relation as public or private (that is pretty easy) then I would like to automatically add new hyperlinks and pages to my website based on the objects. I could see this being pretty useful for people who write in the personal knowledge base and want to share their writings on the web

[andscape-dev]

Bulk modifications

I often find myself discovering a new way to enrich or structure my objects, and wanting to apply an update to some/all objects of a type. As a dev, with a relatively easy to use API I could script my own bulk modifications, but even better would be to have official or community built tools for it using that API.

[iBerlioz]

Nextcloud integration
For instance: a property for an object to attach a file, which will be uploaded to a Nextcloud instance to certain folder. This way it will be possible to easily share files and keep them organised in a convenient way

[avinash539]

Google Sheet Export and Import
We should be able to connect with Google sheet, if we create a daily tracker calendar then we should be able to export it for analysis or we should be able to analyze it in the app itself

[nikkitavr]

At least - just basics crud operations for core domain models

Idk what to say else, it's basics

[nikkitavr]

A kind of webhooks or full pub/sub model for domain events

For a really big opportunities of customization, a classic api client-server paradigm is not the best choice

Im not a spec in a p2p communication, but maybe if you don't have a classic server, it's more flexibility to implement publish/subscribe model for basic domain events e.g "object with id change state"

[RawmanGrey]

**A kind of webhooks ... **

Non-blocking POST request with structured data on user-selected relations change

It is all about webhooks/triggers/notifications... you name it.
I imagine an option to create a relation in UI which would take following properties:

1. URL to make POST request
2. Headers for this request
3. List of other relations to subscribe
4. Include onlySelected or allData toggle

Request body should contain current and previous data state, reflecting option 4 schema.
Pushes on subscribed object deletion seem easy, but pushes on creation seem vague: relevant data will be changed later.

Having an option to trigger events outside of Anytype is a must to my mind for collaborative project management.

If some mustache syntax could be used to refer changed values in body/headers, such interface could communicate with services like ntfy.sh without any other intermediate step.

PS:
Storing "secrets" somewhere in space options as a globally available variable would be nice, just not to have them on the surface : )

[travellingtechie]

I'm not sure if this would qualify as an API or something different, but I'd like to be able to interact with my content as an unencrypted filesystem (similar to cyrptomator). I currently use obsidian and one of the things that I like is that it's just a bunch of md files in a directory, I can open them up in vscodium, I can run python scripts against them, I can trigger other actions when a file gets updated in a directory. I think that in itself would cover a lot of the API use cases, if not as cleanly as an API.

As far as how API access would work, my first thought was that it would be an API node type running on a server, similar to consensus and coordinator nodes. Although it would be nice to also be able to run an API locally, being able to access it as an unencrypted local filesystem would serve most local purposes.

[rrmillar]

Use Case: Replacing GDocs, GSheets and Google Keep for personal and project documentation.