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Obtaining it is administrative; which credential type, scoped to what, held by whom and rotated when is what decides whether it becomes a liability.
How to get API access, and what to decide before you ask for it
API access is how one system reads or changes data in another without a person in the middle. Obtaining it is usually a short administrative process. The decisions around it — which credential type, scoped to what, held by whom, rotated when — are the part that determines whether the integration is an asset or a liability sitting in a shared document.
For an agency this carries extra weight, because the data on the other side of that credential belongs to a client rather than to you.
Decide what you actually need before requesting anything
A surprising share of integration requests do not need an API at all. If the job is “when X happens, tell another system”, a webhook is simpler, cheaper and easier to secure, because the data is pushed to you and no standing credential exists. reading a webhook payload covers what arrives and how to verify it.
If the job is “let a non-developer connect two tools”, an integration platform is usually the answer, and it holds the credential rather than you. building an integration without code is that route, and judging what is worth wiring is worth reading first, because many connections that sound useful create maintenance nobody signed up for. Reach for direct API access when you genuinely need to read data on demand, write in bulk, or do something no connector exposes.
The credential types, and which one to ask for
| Type | What it represents | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Private key or token | One account, usually all its permissions | Your own internal scripts, on your own account |
| OAuth authorisation | A user granting an app specific scopes | Anything acting on behalf of a client |
| Per-location or sub-account key | Access limited to one client | Work confined to a single account |
| Marketplace app credentials | A distributable integration | Something other agencies will install |
For client work, prefer the authorisation flow over a long-lived key wherever it is offered. It creates a revocable, auditable grant tied to specific permissions, and — importantly — it means the client can withdraw access without you having to remember which key was for whom. marketplace app approval is the route when the integration is a product rather than a one-off.
Scope it to the smallest thing that works
Request only the permissions the integration uses today. A credential granted broad access “so we do not have to redo this later” is a credential whose consequences on compromise are also broad, and the redoing is a few minutes.
Scope to the narrowest account boundary too. A key covering every client account, used for work on one, converts a small mistake into a large one — and it is the same reasoning behind protected snapshot assets, where the scope of a change is not always obvious from where you are standing when you make it.
Storing the credential
The failure that keeps recurring is not a sophisticated attack. It is a key pasted into a shared document, a chat message, a ticket, or committed into a repository, and then living there indefinitely while people come and go.
Keep credentials in something built to hold them, with access granted per person. Never place one in client-side code — anything in code placed in the page header is readable by every visitor, so a key there is public the moment the page loads. Record which credentials exist, what each is for and who provisioned it; a log kept outside the platform is enough for the inventory itself, provided the secret values are not in it.
Rotation matters more than complexity. Set a schedule, and rotate immediately whenever someone with access leaves — access and handover when someone leaves should name this explicitly, and onboarding a new team member is where the corresponding grant is recorded. With contractors it is tighter still: training an assistant on agency work is the case where a credential should be scoped and short-lived by default.
What to check once you have it
- Confirm the credential works against a read-only call before writing anything.
- Confirm it is scoped as intended by attempting something it should not be allowed to do.
- Find the documented request ceilings and design within them — the ceilings that pace a large job describes the same class of problem from the workflow side.
- Establish what an error response looks like, and make your integration handle it rather than assume success.
- Note the expiry or refresh behaviour, since a token that silently expires produces an integration that stops without telling anyone.
- Log what your integration does, so a discrepancy can be traced to a call rather than guessed at.
Point four is where most integrations are weak. A call that fails and is treated as success produces the quietest kind of data problem: records that should have been created and were not, which surfaces weeks later as keeping the contact database usable work that should never have been necessary. The same failure mode applies to reporting conversions back to a platform, where a dropped report becomes a campaign optimising on incomplete information.
Access you are given is access you are responsible for
When a client grants API access to their account, they are extending trust about data they hold about their own customers. Two practices follow. Say plainly what the integration will read and write before asking for the grant, in a sentence they can understand rather than a scope list. And revoke it when the work ends, without being asked.
An unused credential with live permissions is the one nobody is watching, and it will still be valid long after everyone has forgotten which project it was for. Removing it takes a minute and is the clearest possible demonstration that the access was taken seriously.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I always need API access to connect two systems?
Often not. If the requirement is to react when something happens, a webhook is simpler and more secure because data is pushed to you and no standing credential exists. An integration platform covers many other cases and holds the credential instead of you.
Should I use an API key or an authorisation flow?
For your own account, a key is fine. For anything acting on a client’s behalf, prefer the authorisation flow: it creates a revocable, auditable grant tied to specific permissions, and the client can withdraw it without you having to remember which key belonged to whom.
How broad should the permissions be?
As narrow as the integration currently uses, and scoped to the smallest account boundary that works. Granting extra access so you do not have to redo the setup later makes the consequences of a compromise broad, while the redoing takes a few minutes.
Where should an API credential be stored?
In something built to hold secrets, with access granted per person. Never in a shared document, a chat message, a ticket, a repository, or client-side code — anything in a page header is readable by every visitor, so a key there is public from the moment the page loads.
How often should credentials be rotated?
On a schedule you actually keep, and immediately whenever someone with access leaves. Offboarding should name this explicitly rather than leaving it to memory, and credentials issued to contractors should be scoped and short-lived by default.
What should I test first after getting access?
A read-only call, to confirm the credential works, then something it should not be permitted to do, to confirm the scope is what you asked for. After that, find the request ceilings and learn what an error response looks like before building anything on it.
What happens if my integration ignores errors?
It produces the quietest kind of data problem: calls that failed but were treated as successful, so records that should exist do not. It surfaces weeks later as database clean-up that should never have been needed, and the same pattern breaks conversion reporting.
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