Informer API

The Informer API Skill lets an Assistant call Informer's own REST API, as the person chatting with it. With it, an Assistant can look things up in Informer, and do things in Informer, that its Knowledge alone cannot reach.

Click the + next to Skills and select Informer API to add it. There is nothing to configure: the Skill's panel is just its name and description, with Remove and Done beneath.

The Informer API Skill has no settings.

Why use it

Knowledge lets an Assistant read the Datasets and files you attach. The Informer API Skill lets it operate Informer: list the Reports in a Workspace, find who owns a Datasource, check when a Dataset was last refreshed, or start a Job, all from the live system rather than from a document. An operations Assistant that gets asked "which Jobs failed overnight?" needs this Skill; a sales Assistant answering from the Northwind Orders Dataset does not.

What the Assistant gets

Adding the Skill gives the Assistant two tools, which show up as tool calls in its replies:

• informerApiCall makes one request to the Informer API: a URL such as /api/datasets, a method (get unless it says otherwise, or post, put, patch, delete), optional headers, a query string, and a payload for writes. It returns the status code, headers, and response body.
• informerSearchRoutes searches Informer's routing table so the Assistant can discover endpoints before calling them. It can filter by method, by a fragment of the path (dataset), or by tag, and returns the first 50 matches unless the Assistant asks for more, each with its method, path, tags, and description.

An Assistant with this Skill usually searches first, then calls. When an answer looks wrong, open View Details on the tool call in the reply to see the exact request it made and what came back (see Seeing what a reply did).

It acts as the User

Every call runs as the User who is chatting. The Assistant can never see or change anything that person could not see or change themselves. The other side of that coin: there is no read-only switch on this Skill. If the User could delete a Report through the API, the Assistant can too, when asked.

Two ways to keep an Assistant in its lane:

• Instructions. Tell it what it may and may not do: "You may read Datasets and Reports. Never create, update, or delete anything." The Assistant follows its Instructions, and rules like this belong there.
• An Informer API Toolkit instead. A Toolkit of the Informer API kind offers the same two tools, plus a Read Only switch that limits it to read-only API routes and its own AI Instructions that travel with it wherever it is used. Attach it in the editor's Toolkits section (see Toolkits). Prefer the Toolkit when the Assistant is meant to answer questions rather than change things, or when several Assistants should share one carefully worded set of rules.

The same capability is available in any chat as the Informer API feature under Settings & Tools; see Toolkits & features. The Skill is how an Assistant's author turns it on for everyone who uses that Assistant.

Troubleshooting

• The Assistant says it cannot find an endpoint. Ask it to search routes for a different word; the search matches a fragment of the path, so "dataset" finds /api/datasets and /api/datasets/{id}/data alike.
• A call came back 403 or 404. The User lacks access to that object or action. The Assistant is not being cautious; Informer refused. Check the person's role and the object's sharing, or the tool call's View Details for the exact status.
• The Assistant changed something it should not have. Add a rule to its Instructions, or swap the Skill for an Informer API Toolkit with Read Only on.

Also available through the REST API

Everything on this page is built on Informer's public REST API, the same one the product uses, so your scripts and integrations can do it too. Developer reference: Assistant API.