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Conductor’s Data API gives teams direct access to organic and AI search datasets. If you’re not writing code day-to-day, the developer playground is still useful. Think of it as a safe testing interface where you can run API requests, see exactly what data comes back, and learn the language your engineering team uses.

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What is a developer playground?

A developer playground is an interactive API tool built into the docs. Instead of coding requests manually, you fill in fields, click Send, and review the live response.

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API basics

  • An API is a structured way for systems to exchange data.
  • A request asks for data using filters (for example: Conductor account, date range, search engine, location).
  • A response returns data in a predictable format your BI tools, dashboards, or internal apps can consume.
  • Authentication proves your request is allowed.

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More on authentication

Each request needs a signature that matches the moment you send the request. Signatures combine your API key, your API secret, and the current time. This combination is then encrypted for your information security. The output of this process is a string of characters—this is your signature. Because, the signature expires quickly (remember, one of its constituent parts is the current time), plan to generate a new one about every five minutes when you use it in the playground.

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Generate a signature from your computer (no app coding)

You can generate signatures safely and easily on your own computer with your Terminal and the small Python example on the Authentication article:
  1. Open your Terminal.
    • On MacOS, press Cmd + Space, type “Terminal”, and press Enter.
    • On Windows, use the Taskbar search function to search for “Terminal”.
  2. Check that Python is available: run python3 --version. If you see a version number, you’re set. If not, you can find python3 for download easily online.
  3. Create a file in a private folder—for example ~/Documents/conductor-api/sign.py—and paste the full code block from the Computing the signature section on the Authentication page.
  4. In the code block, replace your-api-key and your-secret with the real values from Conductor (You can find these in Conductor under Integrations > API). Do not email this file or store it in a shared drive.
  5. At the bottom of the script, after signature = compute_signature(api_key, secret), add this line: print(signature).
  6. In your Terminal, go to the folder where you’ve saved the file by typing its filepath (for the example above, you would type cd ~/Documents/conductor-api).
  7. Run the following command: 
    python3 sign.py
  8. Copy the string the Terminal prints—that is your sig for your request. Run the script again whenever you need a fresh signature.
  9. Use the guidance in the Data API Playground article for running your playground requests.

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One more thing: Asynchronous requests

Many requests to the Data API can involve a LOT of data. So, Conductor uses “asynchronous queries” so those requests don’t timeout. An asynchronous query lets you submit a request, receive an executionId, then poll (ask the Data API if it has finished pulling data for the request) until results are ready. Learn more about how these asynchronous requests are made.

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How to collaborate with your dev team

So, you’ve run some requests and you now better understand the format data is sent through Conductor’s Data API—and better communicate with your dev team what that data means and how you want to use it. To help them understand what you want to accomplish with the data, define:
  • the business question to answer
  • the endpoint that best matches that question
  • required filters (account, dates, search engines, location, etc.)
  • expected refresh cadence (daily, weekly)
  • where results should land (a dashboard, your organization’s warehouse, alerting workflow)
You do not need to build the integration yourself to add value. A clear request with the right API vocabulary significantly reduces back-and-forth and speeds delivery.