> ## 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.

# List live templates, newest first.

> Walked by keyset cursor rather than by offset. ⚠️ OFFSET WOULD BE WRONG HERE, not merely unfashionable: this list is ordered newest first, so a template created between page 1 and page 2 shifts every row down — the caller receives one row twice and never sees another. The thing an integration does between two pages is upload a template.

Archived templates are never returned, by either endpoint.



## OpenAPI

````yaml /openapi.json get /api/v1/templates
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/templates:
    get:
      tags:
        - Templates
      summary: List live templates, newest first.
      description: >-
        Walked by keyset cursor rather than by offset. ⚠️ OFFSET WOULD BE WRONG
        HERE, not merely unfashionable: this list is ordered newest first, so a
        template created between page 1 and page 2 shifts every row down — the
        caller receives one row twice and never sees another. The thing an
        integration does between two pages is upload a template.


        Archived templates are never returned, by either endpoint.
      operationId: listTemplates
      parameters:
        - name: limit
          in: query
          required: false
          description: >-
            ⚠️ A VALUE OUTSIDE THE RANGE IS REFUSED, NOT CLAMPED. Clamping looks
            friendlier and produces a silent defect: a caller who asks for 1000
            and receives 100 has a working integration that reads their whole
            account in ten times the requests they budgeted, and nothing
            anywhere says so.
          schema:
            type: integer
            description: How many templates to return.
            minimum: 1
            maximum: 100
            default: 25
        - name: cursor
          in: query
          required: false
          description: >-
            The `next_cursor` from the previous page. Omit it to start at the
            newest template. It is the last item’s `id` in clear — not an opaque
            blob, because encoding a uuid to signal opacity is a costume that
            makes every support conversation start with a decoding step.
          schema:
            type: string
            format: uuid
            description: A template id to resume after.
      responses:
        '200':
          description: A page of templates, newest first, with the cursor for the next.
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/TemplateList'
                description: The page.
              examples:
                example:
                  summary: The last page
                  value:
                    data:
                      - id: 01960000-0000-4000-8000-0000000007e1
                        name: Employment contract
                        created_at: '2026-09-01T08:30:00.000Z'
                    has_more: false
                    next_cursor: null
          headers:
            RateLimit-Limit:
              description: >-
                How many requests this key may make per minute: 600 on any paid
                plan and 60 on the free plan, the same in both environments. Per
                key, not per organisation — a second key has its own allowance.
                ⚠️ READ IT RATHER THAN ASSUMING IT: it is the number the
                database applied to this request, so it is right even when this
                description is out of date.
              schema:
                type: integer
                description: Requests permitted in the current minute.
            RateLimit-Remaining:
              description: >-
                How many of them are left, this one already counted. Zero on the
                request that is refused, and zero on every further request of
                that minute — ⚠️ a refused request still counts.
              schema:
                type: integer
                description: Requests remaining in the current minute.
            RateLimit-Reset:
              description: >-
                Seconds until the current minute closes and the allowance
                returns. At most 60, which is what makes the published
                exponential backoff converge in about six doublings rather than
                eleven.
              schema:
                type: integer
                description: Seconds until the window resets.
        '400':
          description: >-
            `invalid_request` — The request is malformed, or breaks a rule about
            its own shape: a body that is not JSON or does not match the
            operation’s schema (a missing or mistyped property, a value out of
            range), a document that is not a PDF or a Word file we can read, a
            text tag that cannot be placed, an `Idempotency-Key` that is present
            but not a valid key, a query parameter outside its range, or a
            cursor that names nothing. The `message` says which, and for a body
            names the property path (`recipients[0].email`) — there is no
            separate `param` field. Fix the request; retrying it unchanged will
            fail identically.
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
                description: The refusal.
        '401':
          description: >-
            `unauthenticated` — The credential was absent, unreadable, unknown,
            wrong or revoked — this answer is deliberately identical for all of
            them, so it cannot be used to probe which keys exist. Retrying the
            same request changes nothing. Check the key in Settings or issue a
            new one.
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
                description: The refusal.
        '403':
          description: >-
            `forbidden` — The key is valid and the organisation’s plan does not
            grant what this operation does. Nothing about the credential needs
            to change, and it is deliberately MORE specific than 401 because the
            caller has already proved they hold the key. TWO SITUATIONS PRODUCE
            IT. (1) THE PLAN EXCLUDES THE OPERATION: `POST /api/v1/templates` on
            the Free plan, which does not include authoring templates. A
            template that already exists stays readable at `GET
            /api/v1/templates`; authoring one needs a plan that includes
            templates. (2) WE CANNOT ESTABLISH WHAT THE PLAN INCLUDES, on any
            operation, so nothing is granted. That one is ours rather than
            yours, an ordinary account does not meet it, and it means ask us.


            `insufficient_scope` — This key is scoped and does not hold the
            scope this operation requires — `x-required-scope` on the operation
            names it, and the `WWW-Authenticate` header on the refusal repeats
            it (RFC 6750 §3.1). ⚠️ Retrying cannot help and neither can editing
            the key: scopes are fixed when a key is minted and no endpoint or
            screen can widen them. Issue a new key with the access it needs. A
            key created before scopes existed carries an empty scope list, which
            means EVERY capability, so this refusal cannot reach an integration
            that was already working.
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
                description: The refusal.
        '429':
          description: >-
            `rate_limited` — This key has spent its minute. The limit is per KEY
            and per minute, and it follows your PLAN rather than the kind of key
            — 600 requests a minute on every paid plan, 60 on the free plan, and
            the sandbox gets the same number as production so that an
            integration which passes in rehearsal passes live. Every successful
            authenticated response, and this one, carries `RateLimit-Limit`,
            `RateLimit-Remaining` and `RateLimit-Reset` (seconds), so a client
            can slow down before it is made to. TWO OPERATIONS ALSO ANSWER IT
            FOR A REASON OF THEIR OWN. `POST /api/v1/envelopes/batches` costs
            one request per row and is refused WHOLE when its rows do not fit
            what is left of the key’s minute — `RateLimit-Remaining` says how
            many would. `GET
            /api/v1/envelopes/{envelopeId}/documents/{position}/draft` has its
            own per-envelope and per-organisation ceilings on renders each
            minute, and the `message` says which one refused; there
            `Retry-After` is that ceiling’s, while the `RateLimit-*` headers
            still describe the key. `Retry-After` on this refusal is at most 60
            and is read from the stored window rather than computed, so two of
            our instances refusing the same key quote the same instant. ⚠️ A
            REFUSED REQUEST STILL COUNTS: hammering a limit you have already
            exceeded pushes the counter higher rather than holding it. Honour
            `Retry-After`. If one key genuinely needs more throughput, issue a
            second one in Settings — the ceiling is a fairness and blast-radius
            control, not a commercial meter.
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
                description: The refusal.
          headers:
            RateLimit-Limit:
              description: >-
                How many requests this key may make per minute: 600 on any paid
                plan and 60 on the free plan, the same in both environments. Per
                key, not per organisation — a second key has its own allowance.
                ⚠️ READ IT RATHER THAN ASSUMING IT: it is the number the
                database applied to this request, so it is right even when this
                description is out of date.
              schema:
                type: integer
                description: Requests permitted in the current minute.
            RateLimit-Remaining:
              description: >-
                How many of them are left, this one already counted. Zero on the
                request that is refused, and zero on every further request of
                that minute — ⚠️ a refused request still counts.
              schema:
                type: integer
                description: Requests remaining in the current minute.
            RateLimit-Reset:
              description: >-
                Seconds until the current minute closes and the allowance
                returns. At most 60, which is what makes the published
                exponential backoff converge in about six doublings rather than
                eleven.
              schema:
                type: integer
                description: Seconds until the window resets.
            Retry-After:
              description: >-
                Seconds to wait before retrying, from the stored end of the
                window. Always present on a 429, and never more than 60. On the
                per-key limit it equals `RateLimit-Reset`; a narrower limit,
                such as the draft render allowance, has a window of its own and
                may ask for a different wait. `x-error-codes` tells you to
                honour it; this is it.
              schema:
                type: integer
                description: Seconds to wait before retrying.
        '500':
          description: >-
            `internal_error` — Ours, not yours. ⚠️ RETRY WITH THE SAME
            `Idempotency-Key` YOU SENT THE FIRST TIME, on any operation that
            takes one — that is what makes a retry safe here, and sending a NEW
            key would create a second envelope or send the same one twice. The
            safe GETs in this document can be retried freely. (This entry used
            to say every operation here was a GET; the write endpoints have
            since shipped, and the reasoning moved with them.)
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
                description: The refusal.
      security:
        - ApiKey: []
components:
  schemas:
    TemplateList:
      type: object
      description: A page of templates, newest first, walked by keyset cursor.
      properties:
        data:
          type: array
          description: This page’s templates.
          items:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/TemplateSummary'
            description: One template, in summary.
        has_more:
          type: boolean
          description: >-
            ⚠️ THE ANSWER, rather than something to infer. A caller inferring
            "more" from a full page loops one extra time on every list whose
            size is an exact multiple of `limit`.
        next_cursor:
          type:
            - string
            - 'null'
          description: >-
            Pass this as `cursor` for the next page. Null exactly when
            `has_more` is false — the two are computed from one expression, so a
            true with a null cursor cannot happen.
      required:
        - data
        - has_more
        - next_cursor
    Error:
      type: object
      description: >-
        The body of every refusal the API returns deliberately, at every status,
        from every endpoint. 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, which is a thing real clients do. An unexpected
        server failure may not have this shape: treat a 5xx without an `error`
        key as an `internal_error`, which is retryable.
      properties:
        error:
          type: object
          description: The refusal. Anything added in future is added INSIDE this object.
          properties:
            code:
              type: string
              description: >-
                A stable snake_case identifier that will never change meaning or
                spelling. This is the contract; branch on it. See
                `x-error-codes` at the root of this document for retry semantics
                per code.
              enum:
                - unauthenticated
                - forbidden
                - insufficient_scope
                - not_found
                - invalid_request
                - rate_limited
                - internal_error
                - service_unavailable
                - idempotency_key_required
                - idempotency_key_reused
                - request_in_progress
                - template_archived
                - template_unusable
                - template_has_no_fields
                - recipient_role_unknown
                - recipient_role_missing
                - recipient_role_duplicated
                - value_subject_unknown
                - value_address_unknown
                - value_not_writable
                - value_not_lockable
                - locked_answer_missing
                - locked_answer_unusable
                - cannot_be_drawn
                - send_allowance_exhausted
                - test_key_cannot_send
                - test_key_cannot_read_documents
                - test_key_cannot_mint
                - webhook_url_invalid
                - webhook_events_invalid
                - webhook_brand_unknown
                - webhook_limit_reached
                - api_key_owner_removed
                - recipient_not_embedded
                - recipient_not_yet_turn
                - recipient_cannot_sign
                - envelope_not_sent
                - envelope_not_draft
                - brand_has_no_embed_origins
                - recipient_cannot_be_embedded
                - batch_interrupted
                - brand_unknown
                - draft_not_available
            message:
              type: string
              description: >-
                ⚠️ PROSE FOR A DEVELOPER READING A LOG, and NOT part of the
                contract. It may be reworded in any release; anything that
                parses it is broken by design.
          required:
            - code
            - message
      required:
        - error
    TemplateSummary:
      type: object
      description: >-
        A template as it appears in a list. The detail response is a strict
        SUPERSET of this, so anything read here can be read there.
      properties:
        id:
          type: string
          format: uuid
          description: The template’s id. A bare uuid, no prefix.
        name:
          type: string
          description: What the sender called it.
        created_at:
          type: string
          format: date-time
          description: ISO 8601, UTC. Also the order this list is in — newest first.
      required:
        - id
        - name
        - created_at
  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.

````