REST API transfer

How it works

POST or PUT carries the bytes. Auth is a token. Limits and idempotency keys are part of the API contract. A human link can sit on top of the same API. The API is the machine door.

A product posts a 200 MB report to /v1/files with a bearer token and an idempotency key. A retry returns the same id. A script that used a browser cookie dies when the human session expires. They switch it to the token.

How it differs

A REST transfer is not SFTP. There is no directory listing unless the API adds one.

APIs that take the file as base64 inflate size by a third.

Send raw bytes.

On the ticket

• The practical close is a log line: time, actor, byte count, result.
• Without that line the transfer is a story.
• With it, the next person can see whether this door did what the ticket claimed.
• If the path is shared, say so in the partner profile so a later change does not silently pick a different limit, key, or region.
• On a real ticket, write down the door, the byte count, and the clock.
• For rest api transfer, that means naming the host or bucket, the expected size, and the time the other side must have a complete file.
• A progress bar is not that record.
• A 200 response that arrives before the complete call is not that record.
• If a retry is allowed, say how many and whether it resumes.
• If a person must approve the send, name the person.
• Partners who receive rest api transfer files should match on hash or size before they import.
• A same-length corrupt file passes a size check and fails a hash.
• Keep the published hash off the only channel an attacker can edit, or treat it as a corruption check rather than a substitution check.
• When the path changes, new key, new region, new cap, update the profile the same day so the next run does not use a stale limit.