> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vumasign.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# This document, the machine-readable description of the API.

> The machine-readable description of everything above, served to anybody who asks. ⚠️ NO CREDENTIAL, AND THAT IS THE POINT: an integrator evaluating this API, or an agent writing against it, should not have to hold a key to learn what the endpoints are. It discloses no customer data — it is the same bytes for every caller, which is why it is also the one path here that may be cached.



## OpenAPI

````yaml /openapi.json get /api/v1/openapi.json
openapi: 3.1.0
info:
  title: Vumasign API
  version: 0.1.0
  description: >-
    The Vumasign API. South African e-signature: templates, the addresses an

    integration writes values to, an idempotent send, and webhooks.


    **This document describes what exists today and nothing else.** It is not a

    roadmap, and there is deliberately no entry here for anything that has not

    shipped — a spec you can generate a client from and then discover was

    aspirational is worse than no spec at all.


    ## Authentication

        Authorization: Bearer vsk_live_…

    One header, one step. Keys are minted in Settings. `vsk_live_` and
    `vsk_test_`

    are different keys; the prefix is stored in clear so a leaked key is
    greppable

    and traceable to an organisation, while the secret is stored only as a hash.


    ## Errors


    Every refusal the API returns deliberately, at every status, is

    `{ "error": { "code", "message" } }`, and such a response is a failure **if

    and only if** it carries an `error` key — that test is correct even for a

    client that ignores the status line. An unexpected server failure may not
    have

    this shape: treat a 5xx without an `error` key as an `internal_error`, which

    is retryable. `code` is the

    contract and is stable forever; `message` is prose for a developer reading a

    log and may be reworded in any release.


    The root of this document carries **`x-error-codes`**: the closed enum, with

    `status`, `retryable`, `backoff`, `emitted` and `guidance` for each

    code. Branch on that rather than on our prose.


    ## Rate limits


    **600 requests a minute on any paid plan,

    60 on the free plan — and a test key

    gets the same number as a live one.** Per key, not per organisation, so a
    batch

    job and an interactive integration can be given a key each and neither can

    starve the other.


    The ceiling follows the PLAN rather than the kind of key, because the plan
    is

    what says whether this is production traffic or somebody evaluating us. On
    the

    API plan it is sized so that no honest workload meets it: a thousand
    envelopes

    with a status read each is two thousand requests, which is three and a half

    minutes rather than seventeen. The sandbox deliberately gets the *same*
    number

    rather than a larger one — an integration that passes in rehearsal is then
    an

    integration that passes live, and your `429` handling is exercised where

    meeting a `429` is free.


    Every successful authenticated response carries `RateLimit-Limit`,

    `RateLimit-Remaining` and `RateLimit-Reset` (seconds until the window

    closes, at most 60). Read them on your successes and you will never need to
    be

    refused. A 429 carries them too, and additionally carries `Retry-After`,
    which

    you should honour. A 401 carries none of them; a 403 may not, depending on

    whether it was decided before the request was counted. Each operation's

    responses say which others do.


    ⚠️ **A refused request still counts.** Retrying inside the window pushes the

    counter higher rather than holding it at the ceiling — which is why the
    backoff

    in `x-error-codes` is exponential and why `Retry-After` is worth reading

    rather than guessing at.


    ⚠️ The limits are **per minute**, and the window is fixed rather than
    sliding.

    Spending a whole window at the end of one minute and a whole window at the
    start

    of the next is possible; it is bounded at two windows' worth, which is a
    burst

    rather than an incident.


    ## Webhooks


    Register an endpoint with `POST /api/v1/webhooks`; the response carries the

    signing secret, **once**. The root of this document carries
    **`x-webhooks`**:

    the body we POST, the signature recipe (including the two mistakes that make
    a

    verifier look correct and be worthless), the published retry ladder, and the

    auto-disable rule. Read that before writing a receiver.


    ## What is not here yet


    No organisation-level email exists, so an auto-disabled webhook endpoint is

    discovered by polling rather than by being told. There is no way to change
    an

    envelope after it is created and before it is sent — `PATCH
    /v1/envelopes/{id}`

    is designed and not built — so a draft is created complete or not at all.
    Both

    are stated because a gap named is a gap somebody can plan around.


    ⚠️ **The rate limit above counts authenticated requests only.** A request

    carrying no key, or a key we cannot recognise, is refused before any counter
    is

    touched — a per-key ceiling cannot defend against a caller who has not
    presented

    a key, and pretending otherwise would be a promise we could not keep. That
    half

    belongs to the edge rather than to this API.


    (This section has twice described as missing something that now exists: the

    `uri` on every webhook body, which was `null` until

    `GET /api/v1/envelopes/{envelopeId}` gave it somewhere to point, and the
    rate

    limiter, which nothing enforced until the per-key ceiling above. Both were
    named

    here as gaps first, which is the point of naming them.)
servers:
  - url: https://app.vumasign.com
security:
  - ApiKey: []
tags:
  - name: Templates
    description: >-
      A template is a document with its signing roles and field placements
      authored once. Every envelope is made from one, or from a one-off pack.
  - name: Documents
    description: >-
      The pages of a template’s documents, served as PDF so that a client which
      has to show the paper can do so without rendering it itself.
  - name: Envelopes
    description: >-
      An envelope is one sending of a document to named people. Creating one is
      not sending it: a draft emails nobody until it is sent.
  - name: Webhooks
    description: >-
      Endpoints we POST signed events to when an envelope changes, with the
      health of each endpoint and a secret you can rotate without a gap.
  - name: Specification
    description: >-
      This document, served without a credential so that anybody can read what
      the API does before they hold a key.
paths:
  /api/v1/openapi.json:
    get:
      tags:
        - Specification
      summary: This document, the machine-readable description of the API.
      description: >-
        The machine-readable description of everything above, served to anybody
        who asks. ⚠️ NO CREDENTIAL, AND THAT IS THE POINT: an integrator
        evaluating this API, or an agent writing against it, should not have to
        hold a key to learn what the endpoints are. It discloses no customer
        data — it is the same bytes for every caller, which is why it is also
        the one path here that may be cached.
      operationId: getOpenApiDocument
      responses:
        '200':
          description: The OpenAPI 3.1 document, identical for every caller and cacheable.
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                type: object
                description: >-
                  An OpenAPI 3.1 document. Not schema’d further here: a spec
                  that described its own shape in its own language would be a
                  second, weaker copy of the OpenAPI meta-schema.
              examples:
                example:
                  summary: The document, abbreviated to its opening keys
                  value:
                    openapi: 3.1.0
                    info:
                      title: Vumasign API
                      version: 0.1.0
                    servers:
                      - url: https://app.vumasign.com
                    paths: {}
      security: []
components:
  securitySchemes:
    ApiKey:
      type: http
      scheme: bearer
      description: >-
        `Authorization: Bearer vsk_live_…`. Chosen over a bespoke `X-API-KEY`
        header because every client, proxy and log-redaction rule already knows
        this one. What a key may DO is its scopes — see `x-scopes` at the root
        of this document and `x-required-scope` on each operation. The scope
        list is not written here because OpenAPI reserves a requirement’s scope
        array for `oauth2` and `openIdConnect` and requires it to be empty for
        an `http` scheme.

````