We’re finally ready to unveil the API for the new Basecamp. The documentation lives on Github and we encourage developers to help us improve it with pull requests.
The new API covers most of what’s available in the web UI and whatever is currently not there, we’ll be sure to add in the future. You can create projects, add people to those projects, work the calendar, upload files, the works.
We’re really excited to see where people will take the API. Especially the Events API that allows you to poll for changes since a given timestamp. This should make it easy to have local notification style integrations and much easier for people who want to build synching services.
So have at it!
David wrote this on Mar 28 2012 There are 20 comments.
martin 28 Mar 12
thanks guys, I asked for this but didn’t expect such a quick turnaround
Jon 28 Mar 12
If I was a mobile app developer this is the day where I drop everything and get a great app to market before anyone else. But instead I will wait for someone else to do it.
Wade 28 Mar 12
Awesome! Been waiting for this to use with Zapier.
Glad to see JSON too. :D
Sam Soffes 28 Mar 12
Looks great! I really love the idea of having it on GitHub. It will be great to have the community’s help keeping the documentation current.
Chad Sakonchick 28 Mar 12
It would be nice to allow user signup via the API . Webapps that do something complementary to you could promote Basecamp within their app and allow uber easy signup.
John Kranz 28 Mar 12
Congrats on the milestone. Looking forward to seeing the first wave of third-party apps (and updates for apps that worked with the previous version).
Wayne 28 Mar 12
Must suck to work at 37signals. You spent the last 8 years perfecting a product (Basecamp classic), documentation, API , etc … Then one day Jason got tried of it and killed it.
Now, tIme to recreate the entire wheel all over again that took 8 years to accomplish.
Morgan Currie 28 Mar 12
Congrats guys! This looks really slick!
@Wayne, I’m sure that’s exactly what happened! Great insight!
Alistair 29 Mar 12
@Wayne, @37signals
Even though I know Wayne is trolling a bit, there is also a lot of truth to his comment.
Nikolay Burlov 29 Mar 12
@Wayne I believe that when you are killing your own service it’s better then someone else kills it. And I’m sure that New Basecamp aggregates their experience (8 years) about project management.
a7r 29 Mar 12
“the Events API that allows you to poll for changes since a given timestamp”
Awesome right here.
Anthony Barone 29 Mar 12
@wayne. That is not why it must suck to work @37signals. That is why is must be great to work @37signals. The change speaks volumes to employees, customers, business partners and the rails community.
Michael 29 Mar 12
Thanks for the API , guys. Looks robust and I hope you’ll continue to improve it in response to requests. A powerful API is one of the best defenses against product bloat.
Nate 29 Mar 12
Just out of intellectual curiosity, was there a strong opinion involved with encouraging polling for events rather than some kind of web-hook/callback kind of mechanism. Is that something you just felt wasn’t important for V1 of the new API or was there something else involved with that decision?
—
As for the side talk about the recreation of Basecamp…
“Lasting companies know how to reinvent themselves”
- “Mike” Markkula, Jr. (Apple’s first investor)
DHH 29 Mar 12
Nate, we might well look into web hooks in the future, but it wasn’t important enough to hold up the release of the API .
Anonymous Coward 30 Mar 12
Recreate != “reinvent”
Nico Oud 30 Mar 12
Hi David!
Congratulations! We were waiting for this! Can’t wait for the new Highrise ;)
Eric Blade 30 Mar 12
Hmm. The “Must send a User-Agent that includes identifying information about your app” might be a problem—most mobile platforms do not allow mangling of the device’s UA string.
Well intentioned, but difficult to write for.
scott mclaughlin 31 Mar 12
When will the API key be on the new basecamp for us non-developers and where will it appear???
Nick 02 Apr 12
Eric: What platforms? If you’re having trouble with something let us know on GitHub or on the Google Group.
Scott: The new Basecamp’s API and internals are completely different than for Classic. If you’re using a tool that uses Classic’s API , bug the creators to get them to update to the new API ! If you’ve got more questions feel free to crack open a support ticket.
This discussion is closed.