Quick Start

This guide walks you through authenticating and making your first request to WP Engine’s Hosting Platform API.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you’ll need:

• An understanding of what the Hosting Platform API is
• A WP Engine account with API access enabled.
• API credentials (API User ID and API Password) generated in the WP Engine User Portal on the API Access page.
• A tool to make HTTP requests, such as cURL, Postman, or your preferred programming language.

Note

All users can see the status of their accounts via the API Access page in the WP Engine User Portal, but only account owners have the ability to enable/disable API access.

Authentication

WP Engine’s Hosting Platform API uses Basic Auth. Credentials are sent as a base64-encoded WPE_API_USER_ID:WPE_API_PASSWORD string in the Authorization header.

Caution

API credentials are not the same as your Username and Password for https://my.wpengine.com. Make sure to use the correct API User ID and API Password from the API Access page.

Example cURL request:

cURL Example

curl -X GET "https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs?limit=5" \
  -u "$WPE_API_USER_ID:$WPE_API_PASSWORD"

If successful, the response will look something like this:

JSON

{
  "count": 1,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": 12345,
      "name": "my-wp-site",
      "account_id": 67890,
      "created_at": "2024-01-01T12:00:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

Environment Variables (Recommended)

Your API credentials are sensitive. For security, store your credentials in environment variables:

Set Environment Variables

export WPE_API_USER_ID="YOUR_API_USER_ID"
export WPE_API_PASSWORD="YOUR_API_PASSWORD"

Now you can reference them in code without hardcoding secrets.

Example Requests

Here are simple examples in different languages to fetch your installs.

Go

package main

import (
  "fmt"
  "io"
  "net/http"
  "os"
)

func main() {
  user := os.Getenv("WPE_API_USER_ID")
  pass := os.Getenv("WPE_API_PASSWORD")
  url := "https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs?limit=5"
  req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", url, nil)
  req.SetBasicAuth(user, pass)
  resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
  if err != nil { panic(err) }
  defer resp.Body.Close()
  body, _ := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
  fmt.Println(string(body))
}

JavaScript

const user = process.env.WPE_API_USER_ID;
const pass = process.env.WPE_API_PASSWORD;
const auth = "Basic " + Buffer.from(`${user}:${pass}`).toString("base64");

const res = await fetch("https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs?limit=5", {
  headers: { Authorization: auth },
});
console.log(await res.json());

PHP

<?php
$user = getenv('WPE_API_USER_ID');
$pass = getenv('WPE_API_PASSWORD');

$ch = curl_init("https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs?limit=5");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
  "Authorization: Basic " . base64_encode("$user:$pass")
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
echo $response;

Python

import os, requests
url = "https://api.wpengineapi.com/v1/installs?limit=5"
resp = requests.get(url, auth=(
    os.environ['WPE_API_USER_ID'],
    os.environ['WPE_API_PASSWORD']
))
print(resp.json())

Next Steps

You’ve successfully made your first request! From here, you can:

• Explore the API Reference for available endpoints.
• Follow the Tutorial for a deeper walkthrough, including pagination, error handling, and automation.