Server Scout API Overview

What the Server Scout API Provides

The Server Scout API gives you programmatic access to all core platform functionality, including server data retrieval, metrics collection, management operations, and alert configuration. Whether you're building custom dashboards, integrating with internal tools, or automating server management tasks, the API provides comprehensive access to your monitoring data and configuration options.

The API is production-proven and reliable — in fact, the Server Scout agent itself uses these same API endpoints to submit metrics data from your servers.

API Access Details

Base URL

All API endpoints are accessed via the same dashboard URL:

https://app.serverscout.ie/api/

Authentication Methods

Server Scout supports two authentication methods depending on your use case:

Session Cookies: For browser-based access and web applications, standard session authentication is used automatically when you're logged into the dashboard.

API Keys: For programmatic access, agents, and server-to-server communication, use the X-API-Key header:

curl -H "X-API-Key: your-api-key-here" https://app.serverscout.ie/api/servers

Response Format

All API endpoints return data in JSON format, making integration straightforward across different programming languages and platforms.

Key API Endpoint Groups

Server Management

The server management endpoints allow you to:

• List all servers in your account
• Add new servers to monitoring
• Edit server configuration and settings
• Remove servers from monitoring
• Retrieve detailed server information and current status

Metrics

Access comprehensive metric data through endpoints that provide:

• Current real-time metrics for any server
• Historical metric data with flexible time ranges
• Aggregated data across multiple servers
• Custom metric filtering and querying options

The metrics API respects Server Scout's 5-tier data collection system, giving you access to Fast (5-second), Medium (30-second), Slow (5-minute), Glacial (1-hour), and Daily (24-hour) data points.

Alerts

Manage your monitoring alerts programmatically:

• Configure alert conditions and thresholds
• Set up notification channels (email, webhooks, etc.)
• Retrieve alert history and current status
• Enable or disable specific alerts
• Manage escalation policies

Users

For accounts with admin privileges, user management endpoints allow you to:

• List all users in your organisation
• Create new user accounts
• Modify user permissions and roles
• Manage admin/user role assignments
• Handle user access and authentication settings

Rate Limiting

The Server Scout API is designed for reasonable programmatic use. To ensure optimal performance for all users, avoid polling API endpoints more frequently than every 5 seconds. This aligns with our fastest data collection tier and provides real-time access without overwhelming the system.

For bulk operations or high-frequency monitoring needs, consider batching requests where possible and caching responses appropriately.

Practical Use Cases

Custom Dashboards

Build bespoke monitoring dashboards tailored to your specific requirements, pulling metric data and server status information to display exactly what your team needs to see.

Internal Tool Integration

Integrate server monitoring data into existing operational tools, ticketing systems, or business intelligence platforms to create unified views of your infrastructure health.

Automated Server Management

Programmatically add new servers to monitoring as part of provisioning workflows, or automatically adjust alert thresholds based on server roles or seasonal traffic patterns.

Metric Data Export

Extract historical performance data for capacity planning, reporting, or analysis in external tools. The API provides flexible access to all collected metrics with customisable time ranges.

Getting Started

To begin using the Server Scout API, generate an API key from your dashboard settings and start with simple GET requests to familiarise yourself with the response formats. The JSON responses are well-structured and include helpful metadata to guide your integration efforts.

For specific endpoint documentation and examples, please refer to the detailed API reference documentation available in your dashboard.