The CloudStack API is a low level API that has been used to implement the CloudStack web UIs. It is also a good basis for implementing other popular APIs such as EC2/S3 and emerging DMTF standards.

Many CloudStack API calls are asynchronous. These will return a Job ID immediately when called. This Job ID can be used to query the status of the job later. Also, status calls on impacted resources will provide some indication of their state.

The API has a REST-like query basis and returns results in XML or JSON.

See the Developer’s Guide and the API Reference.