Cloudflare API Integration

Guide for working with Cloudflare's REST API - authentication, SDK usage, common patterns, and troubleshooting.

Quick Decision Tree

How are you calling the Cloudflare API?
├─ From Workers runtime → Use bindings, not REST API (see ../bindings/)
├─ Server-side (Node/Python/Go) → Official SDK (see api.md)
├─ CLI/scripts → Wrangler or curl (see configuration.md)
├─ Infrastructure-as-code → See ../pulumi/ or ../terraform/
└─ One-off requests → curl examples (see api.md)

SDK Selection

Language	Package	Best For	Default Retries
TypeScript	`cloudflare`	Node.js, Bun, Next.js, Workers	2
Python	`cloudflare`	FastAPI, Django, scripts	2
Go	`cloudflare-go/v4`	CLI tools, microservices	10

All SDKs are Stainless-generated from OpenAPI spec (consistent APIs).

Authentication Methods

Method	Security	Use Case	Scope
API Token ✓	Scoped, rotatable	Production	Per-zone or account
API Key + Email	Full account access	Legacy only	Everything
User Service Key	Limited	Origin CA certs only	Origin CA

Always use API tokens for new projects.

Rate Limits

Limit	Value
Per user/token	1200 requests / 5 minutes
Per IP	200 requests / second
GraphQL	320 / 5 minutes (cost-based)

Reading Order

Task	Files to Read
Initialize SDK client	api.md
Configure auth/timeout/retry	configuration.md
Find usage patterns	patterns.md
Debug errors/rate limits	gotchas.md
Product-specific APIs	../workers/, ../r2/, ../kv/, etc.

In This Reference

api.md - SDK client initialization, pagination, error handling, examples
configuration.md - Environment variables, SDK config, Wrangler setup
patterns.md - Real-world patterns, batch operations, workflows
gotchas.md - Rate limits, SDK-specific issues, troubleshooting

README.md